The Dana Cup, one of the world's largest football tournaments, takes place every year in the North Jutland town of Hjørring

Hjørring

Hjørring Municipality is a municipality in North Denmark Region on the west coast of the island of Vendsyssel-Thy at the top of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 929,58 km², making it the largest in Vendsyssel, and it has a total population of 67,121...

 in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 at the end of July. In 2008 there were over 25,000 participants (players, coaches and referees) from all around the world. It is advertised by the organisers as "the world's most international youth soccer tournament" since over the years, they claim it has had the largest number of participating countries of any international football tournament. First held in 1982, the tournament celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2006.

Tournament Format

The tournament caters to boys and girls teams, organised into age groups ranging from U12 to U19. In the first phase of play, games are played in a round-robin

Round-robin

The term round-robin was originally used to describe a document signed by multiple parties in a circle to make it more difficult to determine the order in which it was signed, thus preventing a ringleader from being identified...

format with groups of 4 or 5 teams. Based on their results in this first phase, teams advance into either the 'A' or 'B' finals brackets where games are played in a knockout format.