June friendlies

[pineapple stu]

Senegal at home and Luxembourg away.

Senegal also playing England in June. They're better than I realised - I know they'd gone into a dip after the 2002 World Cup, but they were African champions in 2021 and reached the last 16 of the World Cup. Not a high profile friendly I think it's fair to say, but equally it's probably fair to say they're better side than us and it'll be an interesting test.

And of course we can always rely on Luxembourg for a win to lift the spirits. Can't we?

[John83]

Eloratings has Senegal at 1771, around the same as Hungary or Scotland, so while better than us they're not unbeatable. We're 1609 on the same site, and that gap corresponds to an expected score for us of about 29%. Luxembourg are 1445, so almost the same gap, just in our favour, and an expected score of about 72%. So on average, we should win almost exactly 1 game out of the 2, if we could play the games many times over. Home advantage should push that up a little.

[pateen]

No a huge community of Senegalese in Ireland I would imagine. Same with the UK.
A couple of hundred may travel from France alright.

Interesting tie.

[Eirambler]

Senegal look to have picked up a couple of decent additions on the FIFA transfer portal this week, a French goalkeeper that plays for Reims in League 1 and a Spanish Under 21 winger that has scored five goals in Serie A this season. Two decent recruits.

[Stuttgart88]

I see Luxembourg beat Sweden 1-0 at home on Saturday.

[Razors left peg]

Senegal look to have picked up a couple of decent additions on the FIFA transfer portal this week, a French goalkeeper that plays for Reims in League 1 and a Spanish Under 21 winger that has scored five goals in Serie A this season. Two decent recruits.

Well maybe we should follow suit and bring in the midfielder for Reims into our squad....If its deemed as a good pick up for Senegal to get a lad from there I hope there would be no "well what standard is it compared to The Championship" if Patrick Finn was brought in :)

[Eirambler]

When Finn has started over 100 Ligue 1 and French Cup games like the Senegalese recruit has, I'll certainly make the case for him!

[CraftyToePoke]

https://www.the42.ie/fai-june-friendlies-6658243-Mar2025/

Looking at adding extra fixtures to the June window according to the above, to evaluate fringe players. Honohan / Finn / Kenny / Hodge / Phillips mentioned.

We could probably name a half decent young fringe eleven, thinking about it. Players who will likely improve in the next cycle or so.

[Razors left peg]

https://www.the42.ie/fai-june-friendlies-6658243-Mar2025/

Looking at adding extra fixtures to the June window according to the above, to evaluate fringe players. Honohan / Finn / Kenny / Hodge / Phillips mentioned.

We could probably name a half decent young fringe eleven, thinking about it. Players who will likely improve in the next cycle or so.


From that article... "Hallgrimsson wanted to arrange a January camp earlier this year for LOI players along with high-potential academy prospects to assess more options, but the FAI did not sign off for budgetary reasons"

I suspect budget reasons are why we don't have more than 23 man squads these days

[Eirambler]

https://www.the42.ie/fai-june-friendlies-6658243-Mar2025/

Looking at adding extra fixtures to the June window according to the above, to evaluate fringe players. Honohan / Finn / Kenny / Hodge / Phillips mentioned.

We could probably name a half decent young fringe eleven, thinking about it. Players who will likely improve in the next cycle or so.

I'd like to see an early camp for lads in leagues that finish up in early May. Bring them in for a few days just before the rest come in to work with them and keep the fitness levels up. Could bring the likes of Honohan in then too.