Everton U19s draw with Mainz in Germany this evening

As you can guess, I've got nothing better to do at the moment! But this is SO important! Sleepless nights and all that!

Other news, I read Danjuma missed training today with a minor knock.

Also, the Gnonto deal may not be dead and buried, but the clubs are only £2M apart and may yet happen… believe it at your peril.

The Liverpool traditional club has the longest affiliation in the first English league. In fact, since it was founded in 1878, the club has only been outside the English Premier League for four years. Most recently, the club has been playing in the first English league since 1951, only Arsenal FC have played here a few years longer. Everton FC has been one of 6 clubs never to have been relegated since the Premier League was formed. And so the club can of course also boast many successes over this long period of time. 9 English championships, 5 cup wins, 9 Supercups and 1 European Cup win are testimony to this glorious past.

Of course, the club also had many well-known players in its ranks during this time. In 1966, when England became world champion for the only time, Ray Wilson was a regular player, later well-known players are Neville Southall, John Hurst, Dixie Dean and above all Wayne Rooney. He comes from the Everton youth, at Manchester United he became a world star. Other club legends of the Toffees, as the club is called in England, are Kevin Sheedy and Leighton Baines.

Sheedy has 369 top division games under his belt, won the European Cup and was later youth coach at Everton, including the first two appearances in Oberndorf in 2015 and 2016. The English did very well with third and fifth place and also have one left a positive impression, which is why you were invited back.

And the youth are currently being trained by a club legend again. Leighton Baines is the coach, he comes from the Everton youth and has played almost 500 professional games, most of them for Everton FC. He is also a regular in the English national team in over 30 games, including at the 2014 World Cup. As coach of the Everton U18s, he achieved a strong 4th place in the English championship last year. The team that comes to Oberndorf will mainly consist of these players, some of whom have already played in the Premier League 2 or reserve team of professionals. The squad includes national players from Scotland, the Netherlands, Wales and Benin.

It will be exciting to see if Everton FC manages to top 3rd place from 2015, then they would also be more successful than their big rival FC Liverpool, who also achieved 3rd place in 2018. This rivalry and annual derbies are one of the highlights of English football. These are currently still taking place at Goodison Park, which is less than a kilometer away from Liverpool FC's Anfield Stadium. However, a new stadium with 52,000 seats is currently being built directly at the port for around 600 million euros. This shows the ambitions of the traditional club. And who knows, maybe you'll start collecting titles at the 28th Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe Cup.

[Translated from German by Google.]

Dixie Dean a "later" player after Ray Wilson! He lasted well!