The Gio Cup is Growing: A Season-Long Celebration of the Best in Tallahassee Soccer

When we started the Gio Cup, it was a two-day preseason tournament — a chance to bring our local soccer community together in Gio's memory before the season even kicked off. Watching it grow each year has meant more to our family than words can really capture.

This year, we're taking the next step. The Gio Cup is expanding into a season-long competition. Instead of crowning a champion over one weekend, we'll be tracking every game between our six participating schools — Chiles, Florida High, Leon, Lincoln, Maclay, and Wakulla — all season long, and awarding the Cup to the team that performs best across the entire year.

Here's how it'll work: every regular-season match between Gio Cup schools counts. Teams earn 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw, with standings calculated on points per match played to keep things fair across different schedules. We'll be posting and updating standings all season at gvscholarship.org/gio-cup, so you can follow along as the race unfolds.

One note: this year, we won't be hosting our preseason Kickoff Classic. We ran into an unexpected loss of our planned venue, and weren't able to find a suitable replacement in time. It's a disappointment for all of us — that event has become a highlight of the fall — but we're already looking ahead, and we're committed to bringing it back in 2027.

What we're most excited about is what this season-long format represents: more games, more chances for these young athletes to compete for something meaningful, and a bigger celebration of the community that's kept Gio's memory alive. Every match, every point, every standing update is a reminder of why we do this — to give back to the student-athletes carrying his spirit forward.

Thank you, as always, for being part of this with us.

Ron Vitrano
President, Giovanni Vitrano Foundation