Mystify Soccer - Everton win the European Cup!

Everton win the European Cup!

The Italian and English champions from season 35 met in the European Cup Final and produced a thoroughly entertaining match in which Everton sealed victory through substitute Trent Kort's 77th minute unstoppable volley.

Long before that, Marian Alexandru had assisted in giving Everton the advantage in the first place with a calamitous back pass in the 4th minute straight into the path of Dempsey Vervaecke, who sidestepped the keeper and passed the ball into the empty net.

Whatever Reggina's plans were for the final, it's probably safe to say that this ruined them. To their credit they then composed themselves and kept the ball well for a period in an attempt to grow back into the game, much to the frustration of Everton (and an overly fussy referee) who claimed a couple of yellow cards. The most bizarre one being after Mark Stimpson in the Everton goal went on a rant about the positioning of a free kick Reggina were taking.

The Everton goalkeeper would have been punished more had Lorenzo Laverone successfully taken one of his 2 chances but Laverone needed to do better than shooting straight at him.

Everton eventually managed to get a grip on the game including some wild attempts from distance but neither side could find a goal before the break.

In the second period, both teams stepped things up. Reggina trying to find an equaliser whilst Everton continuously broke on the counter. Reggina were getting closer to success when Everton put fresh legs on in an effort to relieve some of that pressure.

This worked and dragged the play towards Reggina's goal and when the ball was headed clear from an Everton corner, nobody expected Trent to actually shoot from where he was but shoot he did and Dani Verruschi could only watch the ball fly into the top left corner.

This knocked Reggina out of the game then and they had no answers after this - giving Everton their first ever European Cup title.

They came close 5 seasons ago by reaching the final but the manager will surely be please to have finally won the competition.

Commiserations to Reggina - no doubt they'll be back soon as they have a record of sticking around in Europe.