Chelsea Youngsters Star As England Win Toulon Tournament

Chelsea Youngsters Star As England Win Toulon Tournament

The Toulon Tournament is highly regarded and countries send their best youngsters to it with the intentions of giving their top young stars high quality tournament experience. The games are composed of two 40 minute halves and the tournament is not run by UEFA or any official body for that matter but still the tournament is taken very seriously and is well respected internationally. Countries send their U23, U21 or U20 teams and England have only won it 5 times although the last win came back in 1994 which was their 4th title in a row. So it had been a 22 year wait for their fifth title. This year Gareth Southgate had a very strong squad with him which was centred around five of Chelsea’s academy  players.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Nathaniel Chalobah, John Swift and Lewis Baker from Chelsea’s youth set-up were on the field as the whistle blew at the end of England’s 2-1 win over France in the final and the fifth Chelsea player, Kasey Palmer was on the bench if needed. England topped Group B having beaten Paraguay 4-0, Portugal 1-0 and soundly hammering Guinea 7-1 before overcoming Japan 1-0 to seal their place in the final against favourites France.

Lewis Baker fresh from a season on loan at Vitesse Arnheim scored 4 goals in the tournament including one in the final and was the tournament’s top-scorer. Ruben Loftus-Cheek got the winner in the final and was also named player of the tournament with Nathaniel Chalobah named just behind his team-mates as third best player.

This shows that Chelsea’s much maligned academy is producing top quality talent who might well go on to represent their full national sides. Anybody who follows Chelsea’s youth results would know that the academy is working with 5 wins out of the past 7 FA Youth Cups. The last time England won the Toulon Tournament in 1994 the squad contained what would become household Premier League players like Jamie Redknapp, Robbie Fowler, Trevor Sinclair, Sol Campbell and Ray Parlour.  In recent seasons Gareth Southgate and the FA have placed more importance on the Toulon tournament and hopefully this win will help both the national side and Chelsea down the road.