Mini Calci and Primi Calci tournaments return this weekend, 2026 edition

The 33rd Primi Calci Tournament and the 31st Mini Calci Tournament, both also counting towards the 6th edition of the Rainbow Cup, are ready to return. The event, organised by the San Marino Football Federation, will involve almost four dozen teams, specially put together by San Marino football hubs and youth sectors from neighbouring areas just outside the Republic.

The Primi Calci Tournament will be played on the evenings of Friday 17 and Friday 24 April, featuring sixteen teams in fifteen-minute matches split across two rounds. Kick-off is at 19:30 with four games played simultaneously on the four mini-pitches set up on the turf of the San Marino Stadium – a pitch graced over the years by champions such as Ibrahimović, Rooney and Eriksen, to name but a few. Matches will follow every twenty minutes, up to the final block of four fixtures at 21:10. The tournament, open to boys and girls born in 2016 and 2017, will feature seven-a-side matches refereed by match officials from the Associazione Sammarinese Arbitri.

The Mini Calci Tournament is instead dedicated to even younger players. At the “Ezio Conti” Stadium in Dogana, boys and girls born between 2018 and 2021 will take part in five-a-side or four-a-side matches, depending on their year of birth, each lasting fifteen minutes. There will also be mini two-a-side games. No fewer than twenty-eight teams have entered, mostly formed by San Marino football hubs, with strong participation too from Italian clubs and youth sectors. The Mini Calci Tournament fixtures, overseen by coaching educators from the hubs and the CEF, will be played on the mornings of Saturday 18 and Saturday 25 April, starting at 9:30.