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Thread: Debate - Future of Youth Development in Irish Football

  1. #321
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    I had no real objection to what Hunt said. Nothing wrong with kids aspiring to going to England after they've learnt more here. Big difference between that and simply pimping kids to England at any level and at any age. Also, England were very successful at all underage levels this summer so maybe their system is not to be totally scoffed at. I think we all agree we need to control our destiny as much as possible, create conditions at home that beat going to England for most but not necessarily all our kids, and if kids are good enough to earn a good living in England without falling by the wayside too early, that's good too.

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    Capped Player nigel-harps1954's Avatar
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    I don't have any issue with a professional football looking to further their career and earn a bit more money for himself and his family, but the idea that we should be sending our best kids to England is something that needs to stop in my opinion, which is what Hunt is saying.
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    Wherever we want them to go or not, the best kids are always going to go to England.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mark12345 View Post
    I don't live in Ireland, but hopefully the coaches have the kids playing 5 a side football on small pitches??
    Hopefully? Because not so long ago I read on here that many of them didn't.
    In fairness to them they do. I think all schoolboy leagues are playing small sided games in the age 7-11 category based on the FAI's player development plan. If they're not they should be and the FAI can't be blamed for that!

    http://www.fai.ie/domestic/player-de...ent-plan/about

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    Quote Originally Posted by Siberian View Post
    In fairness to them they do. I think all schoolboy leagues are playing small sided games in the age 7-11 category based on the FAI's player development plan. If they're not they should be and the FAI can't be blamed for that!

    http://www.fai.ie/domestic/player-de...ent-plan/about
    Good to hear. We should be reaping the benefits of this in the next decade.

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    Agree wholeheartedly Nigel and if Hunt is saying that, fair play to him.
    It is certainly true that England is largely a graveyard for Irish kids' hopes of achieving fortune and fame in the game.
    It's probably too much to expect to see our young lads heading to Spain, Italy and Germany, but I would be delighted to see them in places like Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden.
    No guarantees in football no matter where you go, but England has proved to be a dead duck over the last several years.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mark12345 View Post
    Agree wholeheartedly Nigel and if Hunt is saying that, fair play to him.
    It is certainly true that England is largely a graveyard for Irish kids' hopes of achieving fortune and fame in the game.
    It's probably too much to expect to see our young lads heading to Spain, Italy and Germany, but I would be delighted to see them in places like Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden.
    No guarantees in football no matter where you go, but England has proved to be a dead duck over the last several years.
    If Ryan Nolan can make the breakthrough at Inter, it might inspire more youngsters to aim for clubs in these countries

  8. #328
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    Quote Originally Posted by gastric View Post
    Depressing article in one way, but if NI can do it, we should be able to use a similar model to develop players in the future.

    http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-34244549.html
    The age group in this article will be this years under 16s who will play the north in the victory shield tournament which I think is on Next Week up north so it will be interesting to see if the north are vastly superior to us as that article says they were at under 14 level. The Scots fa streamed all these games live last year which was great anyone know if the ifa will be streaming them?

  9. #329
    Capped Player DeLorean's Avatar
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    Piece by Oliver Key in the UK Times today - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/s...ball-5zzvjl3mc

    A World Cup but then what for struggling Irish football?

    ood humour fills the air as the Friday night lights are switched on at Maginn Park, Buncrana, for the final time in a traumatic season. Derry City’s supporters still recall their first game at their temporary home last March, when the floodlights failed midway through the first half. “Make sure you’ve put your euro in the meter,” someone shouts. The light comes on, flickers and endures. There is a lusty cheer.

    Welcome to the League of Ireland. The away dressing room is a portable cabin and the press box, perched on scaffolding, is reached via a ladder. The home players stop to chat with friends and family on their way to the pitch for the warm-up. Everyone seems to know everyone and there is a warmth, an intimacy, that is seldom found even at League Two level in England these days. Derry have been without a home all season while their Brandywell Stadium has been renovated, but there is a homely feel to Maginn Park, across the border in Co Donegal. A family atmosphere has been needed more than ever since fans, players and staff alike were stunned by the sudden death of their captain Ryan McBride in March.

    For Derry’s fans, the final game of the season is all about paying tribute to McBride. For the visitors from St Patrick’s Athletic, in danger of being relegated for the first time in their 88-year history, it is a nerve-fraught evening. The match ends 1-1 and St Pats survive, with Galway United relegated instead. As the St Pat’s players and supporters salute each other in a post-match love-in, someone lets off a flare. Not for the first time that evening, the brooding figure of Roy Keane comes to mind. It is not hard to imagine what Keane, now the assistant manager of the Republic of Ireland, would make of fireworks to celebrate avoiding relegation or indeed of the friendliness that pervades the atmosphere throughout. Still, no corporate hospitality, so it is swings and roundabouts, really.

    Tomorrow Northern Ireland face Switzerland at Windsor Park in the first leg of a World Cup qualification play-off. Forty-eight hours later, the Republic take on Denmark in Copenhagen. Both Irish nations surpassed expectations by qualifying for Euro 2016, going on to reach the knockout stage, and are now 180 minutes from a place at next summer’s World Cup finals in Russia. Against a backdrop of handwringing both north and south of the border — worries about poor facilities at club and grassroots level, a lack of qualified coaches and a declining number of players finding their way to the promised land of the Premier League — that seems as extraordinary as it does uplifting.

    The Republic fell to 70th in the Fifa world rankings in 2013 but have risen to 26th under Martin O’Neill. Northern Ireland’s transformation under Michael O’Neill, from 119th in April 2013 to 23rd in the latest rankings, is even more striking. It looks like a glorious period for Irish football, on both sides of the border, but there is concern about what lies ahead, about where the next generation of players is coming from.

    Of the 27 players in the Republic’s squad for their play-off games, 12 are aged 30 or over and, of the remainder, only five (Ciaran Clark, James McClean, David Meyler, Robbie Brady and Jeff Hendrick) have 20 or more caps. A spate of international retirements is expected once this World Cup campaign is over — whether that is in Dublin after the second leg next Tuesday or in Russia next summer.

    The situation is similarly stark in the Northern Ireland squad; of 27 players, 12 are over the age of 30 and there is a lack of top-level pedigree among many of the remainder. Their only four Premier League players are Gareth McAuley, 37, Chris Brunt, 32, Steven Davis, also 32, and Jonny Evans, 29. Their progress under Michael O’Neill has defied all odds and expectations, a triumph of spirit and organisation, but the job is only going to get harder. “Is there a conveyor belt of players coming through?”

    Kenny Shiels, the Derry manager, asks with regard to both Northern Ireland and the Republic. “Probably not, so both countries will probably find themselves looking again to players with English accents. That doesn’t sit well with me. We have to try to develop better players. That’s not easy.”

    The Premier League is not the be-all and end-all, but player development in Northern Ireland and the Republic is typically judged on how many players make it “across the water”. While the number of English players appearing in the Premier League has fallen steadily over the past two and a half decades, figures from the Republic initially held up well as Shay Given, John O’Shea, Richard Dunne, Damien Duff, Robbie Keane and others established themselves at leading English clubs.

    Players from the Republic (including those who have switched allegiance on the basis of dual nationality) made 663 Premier League appearances in the 1992-93 season, which climbed to 759 in 2003-04 and to a high of 768 in 2011-12. That figure has dropped sharply in each of the past five seasons — from 768 to 575 to 501 to 480 to 424 to 400 last term. The projected figure for this season is 321, led by Brady, Shane Duffy, Stephen Ward, Shane Long, McClean and Hendrick as well as three English-born players in Rob Elliot, Clark and Harry Arter.

    The equivalent figures for Northern Ireland are no less troubling. From a peak of 333 in the 1994-95 campaign, the number of Premier League appearances made by Northern Irish players fell to 154 last season. This season’s projected figure is 100. These figures are not cited to downplay the importance of any other league — the League of Ireland, the NIFL Premiership or indeed the Sky Bet Championship or Scottish Premiership — but to reflect the reality. The best players from Northern Ireland and the Republic are always urged to pursue careers in England or at the biggest Scottish clubs, whether joining an academy at 16 or trying, like Ward with Bohemians, Seamus Coleman with Sligo Rovers or McClean with Derry, to make the jump a little further down the line.

    Unlike in the 1990s, there is no longer the expectation of an Irish contingent in the dressing room of every Premier League academy. “The world has changed,” one figure in the Republic says. “Our best lads don’t have the Liverpools and the Manchester Uniteds fighting over them like they did in the past. Those clubs are trawling the world for the best young talent. Also, the development structures here are in desperate need of modernisation.

    “You could have two brilliant eight-year-olds — one in Manchester, one in Dublin. One goes to Manchester City’s academy from the age of eight, gets the best possible coaching, signs for them at 16. The other goes to one of the local clubs in Dublin, like Home Farm, Belvedere, Cherry Orchard or St Kevin’s. Those clubs do a brilliant job, but they can’t match what the English clubs are laying on, training-wise, facilities-wise, education-wise, from a young age. So how does the boy from Dublin fulfil his potential? Even if he goes to City at 16, he’s trying to make up for lost time.”

    This realisation has increased pressure on both the FA of Ireland (FAI) and Northern Irish FA (IFA) to make significant investments in youth development. Unlike in England, the clubs cannot meet the cost. The FAI set up “emerging talent centres” across the Republic as well as 11 “centres of excellence” at regional level for the best young players. The IFA has launched its own initiatives aimed both at doubling participation in football by 2025 and identifying the best prospects.

    The FAI invested “more than €20 million” (£17.6 million) in grassroots football last year. According to the many critics of the FAI’s chief executive, John Delaney, that is not enough. There is more money in football than in hurling or Gaelic football, but those sports, which draw far bigger crowds, are not in competition with other European nations.

    The feeling among many League of Ireland clubs is that their competition has become an afterthought, with money steered towards the national team. The argument, increasingly, is that without investment at club level, the national team cannot hope to sustain their resurgence. Clubs ask where the next generation of international players are coming from. Increasingly, apart from the old fallback option of exploiting the ancestry rules, the answer is the League of Ireland and the NIFL Premiership.

    “Those who play over here for a few years and go over to England a little later have a better chance of making it, in my view, than those who leave at 16,” Shiels says. “A lot go away at 16, come back at 19 and don’t even play football after that.

    “You look at what James McClean has done. He was here at Derry. So was Shane Duffy. So was Niall McGinn [the Northern Ireland forward], who went to Celtic. But there needs to be investment in the league.”

  10. #330
    Capped Player DeLorean's Avatar
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    Continued-

    There are similar stories all over Europe — domestic leagues struggling as the biggest, richest and most powerful clubs, the Champions League elite, reduce everything else to a sideshow. This was always a challenge in Ireland, where English football is so popular, but the challenges are far greater in the elitist, multimedia age. Then there is hurling and Gaelic football to compete with. The recent All-Ireland finals were watched by 82,000-plus capacity crowds at Croke Park and by many more on television. By contrast, there were 24,210 at the Aviva Stadium for last weekend’s FA Cup final, won by Cork City to complete the double.

    Attendances in the NIFL Premiership are even more challenging. Just 2,119 were at Windsor Park to watch Linfield defeat Ards 2-0. It will be a very different atmosphere when Northern Ireland take on Switzerland.

    In Northern Ireland and the Republic, so much hope is invested in the national team. For those teams to keep competing, though, once a generation moves on and these O’Neill-driven success stories are over, the domestic game, too, needs investment. World Cup qualification would bring a much-needed boost.

    Two countries aiming for a place in Russia

    Population
    N Ireland
    1.85m
    Ireland
    4.77m

    Stadiums
    NI
    Windsor Park, home of national team and Linfield. Capacity 18,434
    Ireland
    Aviva Stadium, formerly Lansdowne Road. Capacity 51,700. Also hosts rugby union internationals

    Domestic leagues
    NI
    Danske Bank Premiership, 12 teams.The current leaders are Coleraine. Most successful team: Linfield, 52 titles
    Ireland
    SSE Airtricity League of Ireland, 12 teams.
    Cork won the double last season. Most successful team: Shamrock Rovers, 17 titles

    Most caps
    NI
    Pat Jennings, goalkeeper 119 caps.
    Ireland
    Robbie Keane, forward, 146 caps.

    Top scorers
    NI
    David Healy 36 goals. Current squad: Kyle Lafferty 20 goals
    Ireland
    Robbie Keane 68 goals Current squad: Jon Walters 14 goals

    Premier League players
    NI
    4
    Ireland
    11

    Biggest transfers
    NI
    Jonny Evans, Man Utd to West Brom, £6m
    Ireland
    James McCarthy, Wigan to Everton, £13m

    Managers
    NI
    Michael O’Neill, steered team to 20th in Fifa rankingsMost successful Billy Bingham, 15 years in the job, won Home Internationals in 1980 and 1984
    Ireland
    Martin O’NeillMost successful Jack Charlton. Took Ireland to Euro 1988 and 1990 and 1994 World Cups

  11. #331
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    Oliver key needs to speak to Dan McDonnell sure the north are vastly superior at youth development

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    Quote Originally Posted by liamoo11 View Post
    Oliver key needs to speak to Dan McDonnell sure the north are vastly superior at youth development
    What a bad article. No mention of that club pulling up trees- Club NI. Imbalanced article without it.

  13. #333
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    Quote Originally Posted by liamoo11 View Post
    Oliver key needs to speak to Dan McDonnell sure the north are vastly superior at youth development
    I posted this article somewhere on here in the past and I felt it had some merit then. Reading it again now, despite a silly dramatic headline, I feel McDonnell is emphasising the fact that the NI's elite players are meeting and training 3 times a week, compared to ours meeting once a week. His comments on schoolboy football may be wrong now as the article is from 2015. The other thing I took from the article is this is a plan and from Stephen Bradley's perspective it was beginning to reap some benefits. With such plans, it can take years to really see the benefits too, so is McDonnell completely wrong in his comments? I am out of the loop on such things, but would love to hear where schoolboy development is presently at in Ireland.

    https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-34244549.html

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    Am I wrong in saying that not everything Stephen Bradley says is right? I think he's been found out to be a bit of a mouthpiece. But, look, Dan could hang his hat on Bradley's comment at the time in a fairly one-dimensional article.

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    Capped Player DannyInvincible's Avatar
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    Kenny Shiels appears to believe Shane Duffy played for Derry. Shane came through Foyle Harps and went straight to Everton from them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Olé Olé View Post
    Am I wrong in saying that not everything Stephen Bradley says is right? I think he's been found out to be a bit of a mouthpiece. But, look, Dan could hang his hat on Bradley's comment at the time in a fairly one-dimensional article.
    Bradser has his head screwed on and he's backing it up on the ground. He's widely ridiculed within the league, and unfairly so.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin View Post
    Bradser has his head screwed on and he's backing it up on the ground. He's widely ridiculed within the league, and unfairly so.
    Fair enough to 'Bradser', he's proving that he knows his stuff but he still finds young players to pick without having to venture up North for them. I'm more referring to the fact that he appears to fly off the handle with comments and maybe they're not always thought through.

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    And McDonnell uses one tweet from Bradley some sort of stonewall evidence regarding the grim future of our underage sides.

    Shoddy article and one he should be pinned for. I wonder how many players in the current under 16 side featured that day?

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    I've a pretty long-winded point about what I see in small-sided football here. Most coaches at this stage have some form of coaching badges. I don't necessarily believe that what they are being coached is correct. I was told recently that children do not need to be coached defensively for the small-sided ages. I disagree with that completely. I very rarely hear opposition coaches talk to their players about communication. For me, communication is as important as movement.

    I've seen a lot of small-sided football this decade. The standard across the board is rising. I played at a very good level underage in Dublin. The quality of football across a team is now much superior to when I played. Perhaps the individual players might be a touch below - that's a possibility - but the actual teams are far better. I've seen a little bit of youth football, and again the standard is staggering.

    I have no worry at all about this countries ability to produce players of sufficient standard. What does worry me is the LOI's ability to be assisted by the FAI in creating a product capable of sustaining and supporting the players that are going to come through the new national underage leagues
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  21. #340
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    Quote Originally Posted by Olé Olé View Post
    And McDonnell uses one tweet from Bradley some sort of stonewall evidence regarding the grim future of our underage sides.

    Shoddy article and one he should be pinned for. I wonder how many players in the current under 16 side featured that day?
    Can someone tweet him and ask him to justify that article on his twitter.i tried to troll him but I'm not really social media savvy.

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