The Toulon Tournament (officially the Festival International "Espoirs" – Tournoi Maurice Revello) is a
football (training match) tournament, which traditionally features invited national teams composed of youth players from U-17 to U-23 level. The tournament is named after Maurice Revello, who started the tournament in 1967 and died in 2016. Although the first tournament in 1967 featured club teams, it has been limited to national teams since 1975 (except in 1986 and 1989 when
INF Vichy was invited).
The tournament is held around
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (; or , ; commonly shortened to PACA; en, Provence-Alps-French Riviera, italic=yes; also branded as Région Sud) is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, the far southeastern on the mainland. Its prefe ...
, with the final usually being held in
Toulon
Toulon (, , ; oc, label=Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is the ...
.
History
Toulon Tournament is a (training match) tournament not run under the supervision of
FIFA or an individual national association. Therefore, it is deemed as the most prestigious of all friendly tournaments involving youth teams, and considered an unofficial world championship before FIFA introduced the official
World Youth Cup
The FIFA U-20 World Cup is the biennial football world championship tournament for FIFA members’ men's national teams with players under the age of 20. The competition has been staged every two years since the inaugural tournament in 1977 when ...
in 1977.
Despite the establishment of the FIFA U-20 World Cup and later,
FIFA U-17 World Cup
The FIFA U-17 World Cup, founded as the FIFA U-16 World Championship, later changed to U-17 in 1991 and to its current name in 2007, is the world championship of association football for male players under the age of 17 organized by ''Fédératio ...
however, the Toulon Tournament remains an important (training match) tournament for youth football teams.
Rules
The Toulon Tournament usually was played with two 40-minute halves. In 2019 every match consisted of two periods of 45 minutes each. In a match, every team has eleven named substitutes and the maximum number of substitutions permitted is four.
In the knockout stage, if a game tied at the end of regulation time,