Everton Really Fucked Up This Fifth-Division Team, 22-0

Everton decided to take on a fifth-division Austrian team, ATV Irdning, ostensibly because they were the closest 11 sentient beings in the area. The offseason friendly took place in Austria, where Everton have a training ground in picturesque Bad Mitterndorf, a few miles up the road from the home grounds of ATV Irdning, where they would eventually embarrass the hell out of the Austrians in front of their own fans, 22-0.

Irdning has a population of 2,700 people, and a reasonably thorough Google search nets nothing meaningful about the club. So, somehow, at some point, Everton just told these amateur players, “ah, fuck it, we need to play a team of other human beings.” And so they did, and they absolutely and irrevocably fucked their Alpine souls.

Kevin Mirallas had five goals, Cenk Tosun and Oumar Niasse netted four, Ademola Lookman capped a first-half hat trick—you get the picture:

At a certain point, it was the Austrians—not Everton, they kept pressing on—that just started to mail it in. The goal that made it 19-0 was an own goal from about five feet outside of the box, some sort of lob that was meant for ATV Irdning’s keeper but, obviously, somehow ended up in the back of the net.

The 20th was even uglier, though in a post on their website headlined “Fake News,” ATV Irdning said the linesman incorrectly raised his flag and the keeper believed the play was offside.

I played in AYSO for, like, 10 years. I’m not sure if I scored 22 goals, total.