Youth Development

Hey I was just wondering what Youth Development the Irish have in place - From what I have been hearing it's really good and is obviously paying off as per the Rep of Ireland national team.

We Scots are now seriously looking at this as we have neglected it for so long.

Hopefully we can finally get something succesful in place at club level and National.

We certainly need it!!

Anyway your thoughts on this matter would be appreciated.

Thanks
ball:

Was that the proper Scotland team or Scotland Future playing
New Zealand last night?

Only caught a few minutes of it but I hope it was a 2nd string
team cos New Zealand looked muck and Scots didnt look much
better! Did it finish 1-1 in the end?

I think the UEFA Licencing means all clubs must have proper
youth development training camps etc so hopefully that will
entice young players to stay in the eL.
A lot of clubs ship lads off at a young age to clubs over the water.

Saw something in yesterdays Dublin Dailly about 4 Home Farm
lads off of Celtic in a few weeks

Who knows as Berti Vogts changes it that often!!

Never watched it mate - I had something more interesting like sitting with the wife at a parent craft class.

Better than watching Scotland these days!!

Yep Scotland need to get their act together - It's gonna take us a few years though - No-one to blame but ourselves for the mess we're in.

Anyway on the positive I think we'll come good.

Cheers

Probably Brian Kerrs greatest legacy to Irish soccer was the appointment of the regional development officers.
Their brief is to coach kids in schools from an early age.They also arrange coaching clinics,liase with local schoolboy clubs and fine tune the better players in regional development squads that eventually lead to the international set up.
its now impossible for a talented kid to escape the net.
Currently in Athlone we have 3-4 schoolboy internationals dispelling the myth that you have to go to England to be capped.
The only age group being neglected are the 17/18 yr olds but that will be adressed next year with the new national youth league and also as Ash said the new E.U.F.A. licensing laws.
In a nutshell the youth set up in Ireland is as good as anywhere in Europe,with a lot of European coaches now coming here and studying our methods.
We may not have a Lilleshall or the huge academies on the continent but we do have a tap on every kid who ever kicked a ball and now the staff and facilities to develop them.

cheers

Have the FAI got anything to do with the samba soccer schools.
I think they're a great idea. encouraging the kids to play like brazilians and enjoy themselves.
The amount of attention and care being paid to youth soccer in ireland has started to pay off at the moment with Duff, Keane etc. but I think these lads are only the tip of the iceberg.
I reckon we'll see a lot more of their kind coming thru in the next 5-10 years.

duffer went back to his old schools yesterday and he said that they didn't have a soccer team when he was there.

almost all primary schools are being visited by the F.a.i guys with the exception of a few die-hard gaa principal led ones.
As for the samba schools. These are a complete waste of time.
Oh yea kids will enjoy them and theyll get the t shirt etc etc but in comparison to the F.A.I. run 7 up camps they fail miserably.
See the Fai website for details.

cheers

No, the FAI have nothing to do with Samba Soccer.

In fact, Padraig Nicholson - Midlands Regional Delevopment Officer
critisised them as the come over to Ireland on a money making
racquet, do a week or 2 of fancy flicks and are gone again.

They are trying to promote the 7up Soccer Schools which are
run in conjunction with the FAI.

If anyone was at the Ireland Norway game they would have seen
the display from the young fellas from the 7up Soccer School at
half time.

Some of the flicks, juggling and control were top notch.

That's great - We will need to get that sort of progress now.

We have to go down that road - Scotland under 21's are always excellent but there seems to be a break down when reaching the full squad.

Celtic and Rangers are slowly introducing youth into their teams and long may it continue.

The biggest mistake Celtic made was not signing me!!!

I wish