2023 UEFA Under-21 Championship

[Exgrad]

The childishness and immaturity of some of the responses on here are ridiculous.

Finn is 17 - he is a minor - neither he nor the FAI have any say in what his mother wants or doesn't want for him. I commend her for ensuring that her son receives an education before committing to football.

Furthermore, nobody would even be discussing Finn if Ryan Nolan hadn't signed with Gatafe 9 months ago - give the kid a break and stop with the nonsense.

Hang on, was the original poster serious?? Presumed he was joking.

[CraftyToePoke]

The childishness and immaturity of some of the responses on here are ridiculous.

Finn is 17 - he is a minor - neither he nor the FAI have any say in what his mother wants or doesn't want for him. I commend her for ensuring that her son receives an education before committing to football.

Furthermore, nobody would even be discussing Finn if Ryan Nolan hadn't signed with Gatafe 9 months ago - give the kid a break and stop with the nonsense.

Sarcasm radar failure here I'd say, might want to get yours serviced there JRG :)

[pineapple stu]

Apologies, when you said goalscorer I thought you meant CF for some reason.

Unless you are talking about PL/bundeliga/La Liga level I don’t think the level is all that important at this stage in your career. It’s like being in college studying pre med but working as a cashier in Costa, it’s about adding work experience to your CV even if the job isn’t all that extravagant compared to the career you want.
Yeah, I think it's good that Kayode is playing senior football at all, though Conference North is a low level and I'd probably not count those games. But even it's a different game compared to playing underage stuff all the time.

But some of the Swiss guys have much more exposure again - Imeri, Sohm, Stergiou with 50+ Swiss top flight games already. Okafor is their star player but wasn't involved today; not sure why. It kind of puts the hype about, say, Conor Coventry into perspective when his equivalent experience is 7 games with Lincoln. I think no-one in the squad bar Kayode has more than 25 senior league games. The reports I've seen indicate the Swiss were comfortable winners, and it's probably not surprising as their players do seem to be a step ahead in their careers than ours.

On a similar note btw, Colm Whelan set a goal for UCD in our 3-2 win in Athlone on Friday and really should have scored one himself too. You can see clips below at 1:25 and 2:25. Again, this is the LoI First Division, and you have to keep that in mind when evaluating him!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I21_RouOhw

[Olé Olé]

The childishness and immaturity of some of the responses on here are ridiculous.

Finn is 17 - he is a minor - neither he nor the FAI have any say in what his mother wants or doesn't want for him. I commend her for ensuring that her son receives an education before committing to football.

Furthermore, nobody would even be discussing Finn if Ryan Nolan hadn't signed with Gatafe 9 months ago - give the kid a break and stop with the nonsense.

He's not committed to Ireland. If he can write his name and kick a ball then what education does he need? Ludicrous. Should never be called up again.

I'm bloody joking, pal. You're really searching hard to get your hit of outrage.

[CSAD]

Yeah, I think it's good that Kayode is playing senior football at all, though Conference North is a low level and I'd probably not count those games. But even it's a different game compared to playing underage stuff all the time.

But some of the Swiss guys have much more exposure again - Imeri, Sohm, Stergiou with 50+ Swiss top flight games already. Okafor is their star player but wasn't involved today; not sure why. It kind of puts the hype about, say, Conor Coventry into perspective when his equivalent experience is 7 games with Lincoln. I think no-one in the squad bar Kayode has more than 25 senior league games. The reports I've seen indicate the Swiss were comfortable winners, and it's probably not surprising as their players do seem to be a step ahead in their careers than ours.

On a similar note btw, Colm Whelan set a goal for UCD in our 3-2 win in Athlone on Friday and really should have scored one himself too. You can see clips below at 1:25 and 2:25. Again, this is the LoI First Division, and you have to keep that in mind when evaluating him!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I21_RouOhw

He’s playing L2 but will possibly be playing L1 next season. He does have the look of a player who will be a real late bloomer so while he isn’t doing amazingly now he is definitely someone I’d keep an eye on, a lot of championship clubs were sniffing around so they see it also.

It’s not just club level though, everyone outside of the defense had atleast 6 appearances I believe compared to Ireland who bar Coventry had no more than 3 and it was telling throughout. Coventry seriously needs to think about his career now, either leave on loan or leave altogether if the opportunity for first team minutes isn’t there. Over the 90 they were but between the two goals it was very even but Ireland were very rusty and struggled to get Into the match until about the 20th minute and after that looked more than a match albeit struggled to create chances and after the second went in it knocked the stuffing out of the team and Switzerland looked comfortable after that.

Yeah Colm is doing great, at his point in his career he is in the right place but hopefully in the next few years he steps up the ladder.

[pineapple stu]

"He'll possibly be playing L1 next season" really isn't a ringing endorsement in fairness.

Given how bad the senior team is, we need a bumper crop of 21s for a couple of years in a row to build the seniors up again. Yes, there's promising players there and we'll pick up a couple of senior regulars out of it. But the experience of the Swiss team puts our lot in perspective. It'd have me quite concerned for the future.

[ifk101]

Not sharing the doom and gloom. Missing perhaps a more influential player in the 10 position, and granted there was a relatively high degree of slopiness in our play (goals were avoidable imo and dead ball deliveries were poor), but I think there's more positive than negative aspects to be taken from a work in progress. But we'll see how we get on in the next 2 games.

[CSAD]

"He'll possibly be playing L1 next season" really isn't a ringing endorsement in fairness.

Given how bad the senior team is, we need a bumper crop of 21s for a couple of years in a row to build the seniors up again. Yes, there's promising players there and we'll pick up a couple of senior regulars out of it. But the experience of the Swiss team puts our lot in perspective. It'd have me quite concerned for the future.

He was playing league 2 so playing league 1 is the next step in the ladder, it’s about playing games at his age rather than excelling at his age.

You should also take into perspective that the Irish u21s are missing 10+ players whereas the Swiss were only missing 3 (Okafor,Ndoye,Omrageric) players who’d realistically be in contention. That’s perspective.

[pineapple stu]

He was playing league 2 so playing league 1 is the next step in the ladder, it’s about playing games at his age rather than excelling at his age.
That's a bit of a leap of faith in fairness.

Also a big difference between playing Conference North and Swiss Super League. Yes, playing games is important, but it's not the be all and end all. The level matters too.


You should also take into perspective that the Irish u21s are missing 10+ players whereas the Swiss were only missing 3 (Okafor,Ndoye,Omrageric) players who’d realistically be in contention. That’s perspective.
I did take it into consideration when I mentioned the senior squad in my original post. The U21s in the senior squad with fewer league games include Bazunu, Parrott, O'Connor, Omibamidele, Molumby, Knight and Idah. The U21s in the senior squad with more league games are...no-one. Then you can add in Kelleher, Travers and Connolly who have also played fewer games and I'm not sure if they're still eligible.

But we have to go down the foreign academy route because we don't have a sufficiently strong domestic league to bring new players into, and other nations are showing us up for that. We can't keep putting all our eggs in one basket.

[ifk101]

How good is the Swiss league? Comparable to League One?

[Eirambler]

It's really not that strong these days. Behind the Czech, Cypriot, Serbian and Croatian leagues, among others in terms of the UEFA coefficients. Miles behind Scotland, for example.

I wouldn't worry too much personally about whether our players have as many first team games behind them as the Swiss when they're only playing and training at that level. Arguably a player is better off being in an elite English academy as long as they are combining that with first team game time on loan between ages 19 and 22.

The problem is the players that don't get loan moves for various reasons, Conor Coventry and Gavin Kilkenny being examples of this. They lose out a bit. But on the other hand the likes of Nathan Collins and Dara O'Shea are probably getting a much better footballing education in England than they would get playing in some backwater like the Swiss league, so I'd say it balances out in the end.

I would say the focus in Ireland needs to be more about the standard of footballing education provided up to the age of 18. I'd be less concerned about developing the LoI for older players, really by 18 they need to be going to a better league than we can ever hope to develop anyway given our limited population and competition from other sports domestically.

[pineapple stu]

I would say the focus in Ireland needs to be more about the standard of footballing education provided up to the age of 18. I'd be less concerned about developing the LoI for older players, really by 18 they need to be going to a better league than we can ever hope to develop anyway given our limited population and competition from other sports domestically.
I'd give it a couple of years older than that - by 21 they need to be going to a better league. It'd be interesting to see the success rates of academies versus smaller professional clubs; I don't think the academies are necessarily the best option.

But you can't ignore developing the LoI for older players though. The whole point would be that promising young players have a proper (senior) league to move into early in their careers. You can't have that if you don't develop it for older players (which really comes down to offering higher wages). The LoI is one of the youngest leagues in Europe and that's actually not a good thing.

[Bungle]

I think there is lots to be hopeful of in terns of player development in the last few years. Our youth teams were always competitive to be fair, but there has been a positive improvement in the quality of young players and the quality of the football that they play.

Our u21s are likely to have qualified for the Euros were it not for Kenny getting the main gig and a lot of the best u21s following him into the senior squad.

Right now, I'd put our senior team at the level of a low to mid pot 4 quality side. It may take another few years before we become even reasonably competitve, although the emergence of even one world class player or several very good players could make that happen faster.

Parrott looked an outstanding player at 15, 16 and 17 tearing the best defenders in Europe at his age a new one. Right now, he looks a fairly talented 19 year old. I actually still think he could become a very good player, but he is a cautionary tale for us and we have had plenty of them down the years. Zefi, Moran or Ferguson could get the same lessons taught to them when they end up in men's football at 18 or 19, but the encouraging thing is that if we keep producing big numbers of very talented players, it should eventually stick.

[pineapple stu]

I think there is lots to be hopeful of in terns of player development in the last few years.
I think you're right, although as a sentiment it's obviously a fairly low bar, but at the same time I'd worry that there's an element of familiarity in that. Are we convincing ourselves our underage players are good because they're signed to big clubs and we're following their careers? Meanwhile someone like Noah Okofor plays 50 games for FC Basel, signs for Red Bull Salzburg on that back of that and has 13 goals in 38 games - that doesn't be on our radar and so we're not really comparing ourselves with other countries.

The Danish game will be interesting - again, they've plenty of players who've 40-50 games in the Danish league under their belts already.

[DeLorean]

Full game here -


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFI2zmWXs7I

[Bungle]

I think you're right, although as a sentiment it's obviously a fairly low bar, but at the same time I'd worry that there's an element of familiarity in that. Are we convincing ourselves our underage players are good because they're signed to big clubs and we're following their careers? Meanwhile someone like Noah Okofor plays 50 games for FC Basel, signs for Red Bull Salzburg on that back of that and has 13 goals in 38 games - that doesn't be on our radar and so we're not really comparing ourselves with other countries.

The Danish game will be interesting - again, they've plenty of players who've 40-50 games in the Danish league under their belts already.

Yeah good points. The Danish and Swiss leagues might not be world class, but they are excellent breeding grounds for talent, with a decent level of football and I would imagine very good facilities.

My feeling is that our lads often seem to miss that level of men's football, which really grows a player. They might be playing u23 football for big clubs and ripping up trees but playing week in week out in league 1 or the Dutch/Swiss/Danish etc leagues are what grows a player. Troy is an example of that.

One thing I do think is that the Swiss and Danish have very good senior teams with few lads under 21 breaking through because their squads contain very good older players. Right now, we are an absolutely mediocre senior team with some excellent talents like O'Shea and Knight in the senior squad. I do think that could make our u21 team weaker in the next few years because there is very limited quality from age 23-30 in the team. Still once we can keep producing genuine talents like that in every calendar year, I would be more confident moving forward.

[pineapple stu]

One thing I do think is that the Swiss and Danish have very good senior teams with few lads under 21 breaking through because their squads contain very good older players.
I'd agree with that - but to me that's just a natural symptom of our failure to nurture talent domestically.

[CSAD]

That's a bit of a leap of faith in fairness.

Also a big difference between playing Conference North and Swiss Super League. Yes, playing games is important, but it's not the be all and end all. The level matters too.


I did take it into consideration when I mentioned the senior squad in my original post. The U21s in the senior squad with fewer league games include Bazunu, Parrott, O'Connor, Omibamidele, Molumby, Knight and Idah. The U21s in the senior squad with more league games are...no-one. Then you can add in Kelleher, Travers and Connolly who have also played fewer games and I'm not sure if they're still eligible.

But we have to go down the foreign academy route because we don't have a sufficiently strong domestic league to bring new players into, and other nations are showing us up for that. We can't keep putting all our eggs in one basket.

The level definitely matters but more so if the gap is substantial like PL to L2. While the Swiss league is a higher standard the gap isn’t substantial enough to make a significant difference at that age, Ollie Watkins and Calvert Lewin were doing similar and honestly were that much better at that age and they both went on to be excellent players, not saying he will be that level necessarily but it’s still possible that he could be a good PL player at the very least. Different strokes for different folks, some prefer being a PL set up and some prefer to play games and work their way up, there’s no right or wrong way to go about it.

[CSAD]

Yeah good points. The Danish and Swiss leagues might not be world class, but they are excellent breeding grounds for talent, with a decent level of football and I would imagine very good facilities.

My feeling is that our lads often seem to miss that level of men's football, which really grows a player. They might be playing u23 football for big clubs and ripping up trees but playing week in week out in league 1 or the Dutch/Swiss/Danish etc leagues are what grows a player. Troy is an example of that.

One thing I do think is that the Swiss and Danish have very good senior teams with few lads under 21 breaking through because their squads contain very good older players. Right now, we are an absolutely mediocre senior team with some excellent talents like O'Shea and Knight in the senior squad. I do think that could make our u21 team weaker in the next few years because there is very limited quality from age 23-30 in the team. Still once we can keep producing genuine talents like that in every calendar year, I would be more confident moving forward.

I think our upcoming u21s could be made weaker, hopefully if enough break through then we don’t need to puller the following u21s group.

[pineapple stu]

The level definitely matters but more so if the gap is substantial like PL to L2. While the Swiss league is a higher standard the gap isn’t substantial enough to make a significant difference at that age
Well the problem is that our U21s are playing the U23s Premier League or reserve football. That then is a substantial gap to the Swiss league. Kayode - I'd discount his Conference North time, but yeah, L2 is fine. But he's very much the exception.

The Danish side looks a lot stronger than the Swiss side - they've more players with more time in a better league. How much they'll be focussed on their qualifier against Germany is another matter of course, but I suspect we'll be in for a long afternoon against them.

[ifk101]

The Danish side looks a lot stronger than the Swiss side - they've more players with more time in a better league. How much they'll be focussed on their qualifier against Germany is another matter of course, but I suspect we'll be in for a long afternoon against them.

Doom and gloom again. Playing the Danish U20 side btw.

[pineapple stu]

Doom and gloom is fairly appropriate given our current problems I think.

Nice of the Danish to go a bit easy on us though

[ifk101]

Doom and gloom is fairly appropriate given our current problems I think.

At senior level sure.

Not sure it's warranted for a U21 training camp. We've promoted the "cream" of this age group to the seniors already so expectations shouldn't be too high.

[pineapple stu]

True, but I did include them when noting the Swiss (and Danish) players with a lot more first-team experience than even our younger senior players.

[ifk101]

True, but I did include them when noting the Swiss (and Danish) players with a lot more first-team experience than even our younger senior players.

Sure, but these clubs have smaller budgets than your standard run of the mill Championship club. Unclear if the Danish/ Swiss players would fare better than our players in the English league system. For example, Brighton signed a Swiss player a few months older than Aaron Connolly with 90 first team games at his Swiss club – has played just 160mins with Brighton since signing in October but still made the Swiss Euros squad. (Aaron Connolly has more minutes this season for Brighton than him btw).

[pineapple stu]

I'm loathe to focus on individual cases too much - I could cite Mads Roerslev in reply, who moved from Copenhagen to Brentford and has broken into the first team, culminating in a play-off final win - which is why I tried to look at an overall view of how much first-team football our players were playing compared to Denmark/Switzerland (being our current U21s opponents; I'm not sure how the Australian club system works but I think many of their players got some kind of B team experience in a regional league).

And with 26 in the Euro squads this year, you can probably afford to call up someone for experience, to build on the 100 domestic games he's played and help in his development. We're using those players as the basis of our squad, which probably is just hitting morale at this stage.

We know that most European players start out in their domestic leagues before moving abroad at around 21/22. We're very much an exception in that regard, and we're going backwards very rapidly. I think it's reasonable to suggest there's a correlation there, and the basis of that is the first-team, senior, experience which our players just aren't getting.

I'm not sure what's your point about the respective budgets?

[Bungle]

I think our upcoming u21s could be made weaker, hopefully if enough break through then we don’t need to puller the following u21s group.

Yeah the batch that have been getting called to the senior team were a very good batch by u21 standards but it's going to be a rough one for what is left behind. We have some excellent lads coming through that might offset it a little but optimistic to think that they can mix it with the very good sides like Croatia, Serbia, Denmark and Switzerland at u21 level let alone the Spains, Portugals and Frances of this world, who will have a lot of lads playing at a very high level and they might be 17 or 18. Entirely possible we have a breakout star like Moran or Ferguson who completely bypass the u21s. Much less likely to happen with a Switzerland or Denmark.

[CSAD]

Yeah the batch that have been getting called to the senior team were a very good batch by u21 standards but it's going to be a rough one for what is left behind. We have some excellent lads coming through that might offset it a little but optimistic to think that they can mix it with the very good sides like Croatia, Serbia, Denmark and Switzerland at u21 level let alone the Spains, Portugals and Frances of this world, who will have a lot of lads playing at a very high level and they might be 17 or 18. Entirely possible we have a breakout star like Moran or Ferguson who completely bypass the u21s. Much less likely to happen with a Switzerland or Denmark.

Yeah and even without those players it’s still a decent batch that could mix it with most teams but to compete with the second tier u21 nations such as the ones you mentioned we will need our better ones available as the other nations are unlikely to be pulling 10 players from the squad. What needs to be done is develop a culture across the age groups, which in fairness since Kenny took over I think is being done, as that will help us with consistency when a player drops out. From what I have seen from Switzerland and Denmark while they have been very consistent it’s largely been them just finishing on the right side of the score line rather than bartering team. Whereas Croatia and Serbia who don’t really have a culture set up throughout the age groups you can see do struggle for consistency in results. From looking at these teams you can definitely see that familiarity playing a role.

[paul_oshea]

What does "develop a culture across the age groups" mean ?!

[CraftyToePoke]

What does "develop a culture across the age groups" mean ?!

Well Paulo, as I understand it, its a little like what Jack Charlton ( your hero ) did soon after taking over when he went in the 21s dressing room uninvited, dictated his methodology, undermined the manager and destroyed a culture, a footballing one. But we all got to sing Ole Ole get really drunk and some even ended up on the telly so it all turned out ok. Till now.

Its like that, but in reverse, if you get me ?

[Stuttgart88]

What does "develop a culture across the age groups" mean ?!
You’ve really no idea?

[CSAD]

Doom and gloom is fairly appropriate given our current problems I think.

Nice of the Danish to go a bit easy on us though

Denmark have the u21 euros at the moment, the squad that plays us is what will be their u21s next season minus the few that were called up to the u21s.

[paul_oshea]

You’ve really no idea?

I don't no! It sounds like some management consultant coming in trying to sell some more work.

[paul_oshea]

Well Paulo, as I understand it, its a little like what Jack Charlton ( your hero ) did soon after taking over when he went in the 21s dressing room uninvited, dictated his methodology, undermined the manager and destroyed a culture, a footballing one. But we all got to sing Ole Ole get really drunk and some even ended up on the telly so it all turned out ok. Till now.

Its like that, but in reverse, if you get me ?

It's getting a bit desperate when yer argument it's being regurgitated again and again flogging the same dead horse. Bah humbug says he, stuttering mumbling, from the corner of the pub, by himself, as he watches Robbie Brady score in the Euros.

[elatedscum]

You’d think that Dylan James Ryan and Connor Neil Kazuya O’Toole would be eligible to play for us

[passinginterest]

Aussies seem to be on top in this game. Only have it on in the background so not fully watching but they seem to have got in behind a few times, whereas no chances I can recall for us yet.

[tetsujin1979]

You’d think that Dylan James Ryan and Connor Neil Kazuya O’Toole would be eligible to play for us

O'Toole's father is Irish according to the commentator, and his mother is Japanese. The Tekken player in me immediately though of this
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/projectxzone/images/7/74/PXZ2-Kazuya.png/revision/latest?cb=20150420205324
Watson is eligible for Australia according to him too.

[tetsujin1979]

Maher's passing is a bit wild at times. I didn't notice it against Switzerland, so maybe it's just the few passes he's had to make so far.

[Briuk]

We are defending very well though

[elatedscum]

They’ve pressed us much better. Maybe it’s the fact they’re that bit older but I think overall we lack a bit of bite through the side. Interesting midfield choices with basically 5 midfielders and no real wingers. Obviously you’ve got ferry playing left back who’s a winger, so that adds width but off the ball, the likes of Watson aren’t exactly harriers.

Decent first half though. Thought we were good in the first quarter of an hour or so. Overall a squad is starting to form. Not entirely convinced by Crawford yet but willing to give him time to see how it goes.

I’d imagine Knight won’t play another 21s game but there’ll be real competition in midfield with Connell, Coventry, Noss, Johansson, Smallbone, Finn, Hodge and Watson all vying for three spots. Along with the likes of Grant, Tierney, Devoy and Bowden in the next tier.

Current attackers (Afolabi and Kayode) are well behind the likes of Idah, Connolly, Parrott, Obafemi and Odubeko. Could certainly see one of them with the 21s when everyone is fit.

There’s a lot of inconsistency within the team but plenty to like, even if the performances haven’t really been great so far.

[elatedscum]

In the Crawford era of five and two thirds games, ireland have scored 6 goals - 3 of them have been OGs!

[tetsujin1979]

nice move ending in an Australian defender putting the ball into his own net. if he hadn't made contact, Kayode was behind him for the tap in. Nice work from Lyons released Noss, who crossed for the OG

Johansson and Watson on for Kilkenny and Watson

[jbyrne]

1-1 now

[DeLorean]

1-1. Johansson lost possession after taking a heavy touch trying to control a pass from Maher, great finish though.

[elatedscum]

1-1 great finish by the Australian. Someone gave the ball away really badly in the build up.

The Australians are pretty dirty. Bad tackles on Noss, Wright, Lyons, Connell and Ferry

[DeLorean]

2-1 Ireland. Johansson wins possession, great wing play and cross by Wright and Tierney finishes it with a header.

[CSAD]

Tierney is not the tallest but he does score a lot of headers!

[passinginterest]

It was a lovely goal, great run into the box to meet the cross by Tierney. Kayode just looks like he's short a yard or two of pace for a top level striker. He took a couple of dives looking for pens too, when showing a bit of strength and trying to get a shot away might have served him better.

Johansson has had some lovely touches but also got caught really badly in possession a few times.

Good win for them.

[Dalymountrower]

Tierney has an amazing spring, he is developing into a quality player. Hard as nails around mid field and gets into great positions in the box.

[ifk101]

Nice goal at the end and good result for us. But thought we were second best for most of the game and are carrying a couple of passengers in midfield – Noss and Watson are a bit off at this level. I was skeptical about Johansson but does look like he can play and is capable of taking and turning with the ball (mistake in the lead up to their goal aside) – something we otherwise struggle to do.