Leighton Baines’s young players have pulled off a tremendous coup, winning the 60th U19s Champions Trophy in Düsseldorf over the Easter weekend.
Everton U19s were one of the four foreign teams invited to compete with young sides from six German sides in the competition that has been hosted annually by BV 04 Düsseldorf since 1963.
The teams were split into two groups each playing four shortened 50-minute games over Friday, Saturday and Sunday to establish the group leaders and runners-up, who then played each other in the semi-finals on Monday morning.
That pitched Group 1 winners Sydney FC against Borussia Mönchengladbach, the Australians earning their place in Final with a 3 – 2 win.
As winners of Group 2, Everton took on Fortuna Düsseldorf, having won 3 and drawn 1 of their group games, with the following goalscorers:
Sat 10:30 — Japan Hochschulauswahl 0 – 1 Everton (Beaumont-Clark)
Sat 17:00 — Everton 1 – 1 Borussia Mönchengladbach (Ebere)
Sun 15:30 — BV 04 Düsseldorf 0 – 2 Everton (Sherif, Moonan)
Sun 18:30 — Everton 2 – 0 Union Berlin (Sherif, Ebere)
That unbeaten sequence saw Everton U19s topping Group 2 ahead of Borussia Mönchengladbach, who lost to Sydney in the first semi-final on Monday morning.
Everton had a harder time of it, kicking off at 11:30 against Fortuna Düsseldorf in the second semi-final, and winning the penalty shoot-out 4 – 3 after Jack Patterson had equalized in normal time, with Finney, Ebere, Sherif and Bates getting those penalties that put Everton into the Final.
After games to decide 3rd and 5th places in the Champions Trophy (won by Borussia Mönchengladbach and FC Nordsjaelland respectively), Everton took on Sydney FC in the final game, kicking off at 15:30 on Monday.
The hard-fought contest ended goalless, Everton going on to win the penalty shoot-out 3 – 1 with George Finney, Jacob Beaumont-Clark and Harrison Armstrong scoring their spot-kicks.
As winners, Everton will be automatically invited back to defend their newly won title, the 61st Easter tournament for the U19 Champions Trophy is set to begin on 17 April 2025.