An Everton Under-19s squad will travel to Oberndorf, Germany this Thursday 3 August to face a host of international opponents at the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe Cup.
In a condensed format, the young Blues’ first game of competition sees them take on Mainz on Friday evening (5.30pm BST), before playing Roma on Saturday afternoon (12.45pm BST), and then Freiburg (5.15pm BST) on Saturday evening.
Matchdays will be streamed live on the tournament's YouTube channel, which can be found by clicking here.
If the Everton team, led by Under-18s' Head Coach Leighton Baines, can progress past the group stage, they will compete in the semi-finals, and potentially, final on Sunday.
The tournament’s other group is made up of Schalke, Stuttgart, Palmeiras and Midtjylland.
Speaking to evertonfc.com, Baines is looking forward to seeing the young squad perform in a challenging environment, while believing his players will learn a lot from the opportunity.
“I’m excited to see our lads against different teams. You don’t always get to play these kinds of academies, so it’ll be good to see the different styles of play," he told evertonfc.com.
“The majority of lads will have been on tours before, so they’ll know some of what to expect, but each tour is different and will throw up challenges.”
The travelling squad will be a mix of Academy youngsters at different stages of their development, and Baines believes the weekend could provide a valuable experience – particularly for the first-year scholars.
“The new scholars will be going,” said Baines, explaining the make-up of his team. “They’ll join a squad that’s similar to what we’ve had this summer. Along with first and second-year scholars, there’ll be four lads from the Under-21s: Roman (Dixon), Frankie (Okoronkwo), Jenson (Metcalfe), and Isaac (Heath).
“For some of them, as first-year scholars playing against potentially a good level of first-year pros, it’ll be challenging. There will be a lot of learning, for sure.”
The young Blues’ squad for the 2023 Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe Cup is listed below:
Matthew Apter
Harrison Armstrong
Callum Bates
Jacob Beaumont-Clark
Jack Butler
Roman Dixon
George Finney
Harvey Foster
Isaac Heath
Douglass Lukjanciks
Daniel Maher
Jenson Metcalfe
Bradley Moonan
Francis Okoronkwo
Jack Patterson
George Pickford
Odin Samuels-Smith
Martin Sherif
Aled Thomas
Joshua Van Schoor
