International Challenge Trophy

The International Challenge Trophy, originally known as the European Challenge Trophy, is an international association football competition. It is open to national teams featuring semi-professional U-23 footballers who have not yet won senior international caps.^[1] While the competition rules allow squads to select foreign-based players, some teams, including the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Italy, have opted to restrict selection to footballers playing in their home national leagues.^[2][3] The European Challenge Trophy was contested in 2005–06 and featured just four teams - England C, Netherlands Amateurs U-23, Belgium U-21 and Italy Lega Pro U-21. England C won the inaugural competition. ^[4] The competition was then relaunched as the International Challenge Trophy for the 2007-09 edition. This time the number of participants doubled. ^[5] The 2009-11 third edition was contested by eleven teams.

Tournaments

Year		Winners	Score	Runners-up		Number of teams
2005–06 Details		England C	No final	Belgium U-21		4
2007–09 Details		Belgium U-21	1–0	England C		8
2009–11 Details		Portugal U-23	1–0	England C		11
2011–13 Details		Turkey A2	1–0	Norway U23		8
2013–15 Details[6]	Slovakia	2–2 3–2 pen.	Turkey	8

References

1. kassiesa.nl
2. www.fai.ie
3. bbc.co.uk
4. 2005–06 results at www.rsssf.com
5. 2007–09 results at www.rsssf.com
6. Archived September 5, 2015 at the Wayback Machine