Rhode Island teen delivers ball at World Cup Final

Though the United States had been eliminated from the World Cup, Rhode Island still found a way to make its mark on the final match.

Andrew Park, a 14-year-old from Providence, got the chance to deliver the match ball for arguably the world’s biggest sporting event on July 19. Park was selected as a member of Kia’s “Official Match Ball Carrier” Squad after finding out about the opportunity while scrolling Instagram.

“I saw this ad while I was on Instagram and I just thought, ‘Why not?' " Park said. “I sent them my [soccer] highlight reel and they [eventually] emailed my mom. She thought it was spam, so she deleted it, but then she undeleted it and sent it to my dad.”

Park currently plays goalkeeper for the U15 National Team at Scorpions Soccer Club, and played three years for Nathan Bishop Middle School. Park starts his first year at Classical High School in the fall, where he hopes to play for the soccer team.

Park’s highlight reel, before being selected, was subjected to review by some of the game’s greatest players. France's Thierry Henry, England's Rio Ferdinand, Mexico's Jorge Campos, Spain's David Villa and South Korea's Ahn Jung-Hwan were just some of the legends included in the process, according to Kia’s website.

When Park and others were selected for this program, they received video calls from the legendary players as well as coaches who were involved to notify them of their selection, while also inviting them to Los Angeles to practice with one another and improve their skills with coaching from top coaches and players.

Park and his family took two trips to Los Angeles before eventually heading to New York, according to Eddie Park, Andrew's father. The first trip was just for a weekend so that Andrew could meet and practice with the other USA youth players as well as answer questions from the media.

The second trip was for several days during which Park and his teammates practiced and competed in the Official Match Ball Carrier Cup. The OMBC Cup is a small tournament between the U.S. youths and kids who were selected from other countries. Park was named as a goalkeeper for the tournament.

Park said that he wasn’t aware of what game he was going to be a part of until he got to Los Angeles, and even when he was selected for the World Cup Final, no other information was provided until the day of the event.

“When it was closer to the World Cup Final, they really gave us no information,” Park said. “It was kind of like when we got there, we would understand what’s going on.”

The family’s flights and hotels throughout the process were paid for, according to Park.

For most kids, it would be understandable if they were nervous to walk out to a crowd of more than 80,000, but Park said that he remained mostly calm when walking out. “I was just thinking not to drop the ball, of course,” Park said. “There were some nerves, but I was pretty calm the entire time.”

Another perk that was attached to delivering the ball was being in front of some of the world’s greatest players. Though he was supposed to deliver the ball and immediately come back, Park took the opportunity to meet Spain’s Lamine Yamal.

To top off the experience, Park and his family were given tickets to watch the game. “We didn’t really know what was going to happen because we didn’t know if I was going to be a ball boy on the sideline, or we were going to have seats somewhere in the stadium, or we were just going to go home, but we kind of just found out when we got there.”

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Rhode Island teen delivers ball at World Cup Final