2023 UEFA Under-21 Championship

I’ve read 2 interpretations of the new rules:

1) you’re only locked in if A) you’ve played 4 senior international games , or if B) you’ve played a senior game at or over the age of 21, or if C) you’ve played in a major tournament.

2) a) same c) same b) if you’ve played a senior game or competitive underage game over the age of 21

There’s hasn’t been any examples to test the rule so far but the likes of Gallagher and Coventry would be people who are eligible to switch under criteria a but not criteria b.

I guess time will tell which interpretation is correct

Hondermarck called up to replace the injured Johansson.

Looks like he got his eligibility sorted too. Excited to see him play!

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

no, I'm asking if it's true
no, UL graduate
no, just u21
the42's football newsletter

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My opinion is that you should just assume you are at least as smart as the person who pens the article when it comes to inerpretating FIFA statutes. In regards to switching countries, age does not matter if the player has not been capped at senior competititve level. It is very common for players to be over 21 and still playing at competitive u21 level.

Team announced for Italy

Seemed a positive start for the 21s. Unlucky slip for the Italy goal but Italy were looking the more dangerous as it went on.

Sadly, Lee O'Connor looks a weak link in this side tonight. Some poor passes and touches and Italy seem to be targeting him a bit. Would expect more from one of the most senior squad players. Saying that, I remember Seamus Coleman being a weak link in a few 21s games and he turned out alright!

Sucker punch on the break to put Italy 2 up just as Ireland were really pressing. Tierney had a couple of decent chances after coming on. Ebosele had an impact too, although he made a few bad errors first, probably nervy.

There's a lot of quality in this 21s squad but not sure the management is getting the best from them. Seems to be a pretty rigid 4-3-3/4-5-1 every time and it's not working particularly well. Would be interesting to see something a bit different against Sweden. Might get to that game for a closer look.

I really liked our midfield 4 all very good players individually I'd be surprised if each of them didn't win senior caps. The centre halves are raw but o brien seems to be on a massive upward curve in the last year so he may have a high ceiling. Distribution from the keeper very poor compared to kelleher and bazunu. Striker options in this group very average compared to partott idah and connolly. Hopefully ferguson plays Tuesday and we use the test of the campaign to give him exposure. Hopefully ebosele can keep developing and come through as a wingback .

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Originally Posted by passinginterest

There's a lot of quality in this 21s squad but not sure the management is getting the best from them.

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That's my feeling as well. Based on where the individuals are at a club level, maybe we can be expecting more. It is a decent squad even accounting for the absence of U21 eligible players in the senior squad.

Criticising a kid here I know, but not seeing the player in Conor Noss. Our play breaks down more often than not when he gets on the ball.

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Originally Posted by ifk101

That's my feeling as well. Based on where the individuals are at a club level, maybe we can be expecting more. It is a decent squad even accounting for the absence of U21 eligible players in the senior squad.

Criticising a kid here I know, but not seeing the player in Conor Noss. Our play breaks down more often than not when he gets on the ball.

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I like noss he tries to commit defenders centrally and wants to look for forward passes to open things up rather than safe square passing but obviously that means your passing accuracy isn't going to look as good as tge square and safe brigade

What about Brian Maher? Made some fine saves and looks comfortable on the ball. Saw him earlier in the campaign and he didn't impress me. Really did last night though. He is very small for a keeper. I hate to highlight the obvious. Is he 5 foot 10?

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

What about Brian Maher? Made some fine saves and looks comfortable on the ball. Saw him earlier in the campaign and he didn't impress me. Really did last night though. He is very small for a keeper. I hate to highlight the obvious. Is he 5 foot 10?

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I thought his distribution was poor last night lots of aimless long balls

What happened to Oko Flex?

What is the verdict on Maher? He is signing for Derry City. I don’t watch or really care about the u21s but the bits I pick up in here are that he doesn’t entirely convince?

Probably a very good league of ireland keeper. Doubt he’ll get a move across the water purely due to his height

Dull enough game in Tallaght. Sweden look happy enough tapping the ball around and taking a draw. Not a lot of movement or penetration from either side. Sweden maybe the best chance. Wright and Tierney stand out for me. Kilkenny is tidy and back four not done a lot wrong.

Loving Kilkenny. Reminds me a lot of Cullen but a little more progressive in the passing (Cullen obviously has other attributes, not saying he's better!). He is showing an eye for an interception too which is positive for a man that is just learning the position.

Really liking smallbone tonight

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Originally Posted by liamoo11

Really liking smallbone tonight

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Yes, he looks a player. Could bring a lot of creativity to the senior side in that position behind the striker if he can get going.

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

Yes, he looks a player. Could bring a lot of creativity to the senior side in that position behind the striker if he can get going.

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I think so too. For a lad who has played very little football since his acl he looks really athletic. Good size as well, lovely touch and is always looking for the risky open them up ball. Seems comfortable getting into forward areas and taking tge ball on the half turn

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Originally Posted by liamoo11

I think so too. For a lad who has played very little football since his acl he looks really athletic. Good size as well, lovely touch and is always looking for the risky open them up ball. Seems comfortable getting into forward areas and taking tge ball on the half turn

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Yeah and I like how he's comfortable pulling wide or coming through the middle. Can cross and play a through ball. Lovely variety. Tailor made for that position.

Last second goal and winner for Ireland. Ollie O'Neill with a lovely goal. One on one with a defender. Had to shift in, shift out again and shift back in to bury it in the bottom corner. 18 years of age. He absolutely loved it.

Ireland seemed to play a counter attacking game in second half. Sweden had very few changes even though they seemed to have a lot of the territory. Ireland had chances for Ferry and Ferguson and an absolute sitter for Wright that he really did badly with- refused to put anything behind it to score from an open goal and an easy save for the keeper.

O'Neill the hero. And he looked good when he came on. Spun his man down the beautifully to set up a chance for Ferguson earlier. Then did the business with that goal. Good man.

If there's ever a time to score.. thats it 😅😅

Much better second half. All the subs had an impact. There was a lot more urgency second half and deserved the result. Sweden looked happy to take a point all game and it came back to bite them.

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

Last second goal and winner for Ireland. Ollie O'Neill with a lovely goal. One on one with a defender. Had to shift in, shift out again and shift back in to bury it in the bottom corner. 18 years of age. He absolutely loved it.

Ireland seemed to play a counter attacking game in second half. Sweden had very few changes even though they seemed to have a lot of the territory. Ireland had chances for Ferry and Ferguson and an absolute sitter for Wright that he really did badly with- refused to put anything behind it to score from an open goal and an easy save for the keeper.

O'Neill the hero. And he looked good when he came on. Spun his man down the beautifully to set up a chance for Ferguson earlier. Then did the business with that goal. Good man.

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Fair play to o neill. He came in at 16s with Barry and riley who subsequently moved on from us. He was the least rated of the 3 but I really liked him when I saw him in the victory shield at 16s.

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Originally Posted by liamoo11

Fair play to o neill. He came in at 16s with Barry and riley who subsequently moved on from us. He was the least rated of the 3 but I really liked him when I saw him in the victory shield at 16s.

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Both grandparents from Waterford and mother from Galway per a poster on YBIG. His post match interview was class too: https://twitter.com/RTEsoccer/status...680176133?s=20

Maybe we should give Crawford a bit of credit too? his substitutions changed the game for Ireland.

thought we played the game pretty much spot on. kept them at bay in the first half but still created a couple of half chances.
second half we pushed on and should've already been one up by the time we scored.

two sloppy passes aside i thought o'connor was back to his best.

overall it was quite impressive

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Originally Posted by jbyrne

thought we played the game pretty much spot on. kept them at bay in the first half but still created a couple of half chances.
second half we pushed on and should've already been one up by the time we scored.

two sloppy passes aside i thought o'connor was back to his best.

overall it was quite impressive

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I thought O'Connor was much better than Bagan on the other side. I thought Bagan was very quick to turn back inside and pass behind to a centre half. I thought O'Connor was much keener to be progressive.

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

His post match interview was class too: https://twitter.com/RTEsoccer/status...680176133?s=20

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Wasn't it brilliant?

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Originally Posted by Kingdom

Maybe we should give Crawford a bit of credit too? his substitutions changed the game for Ireland.

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Yes and no.

Good to win last night but whatever about Crawford's impact on the result, my sense is we are not getting the most out of the pool of players available to us. Take last night’s game – individually we have a stronger pool of players than Sweden. We’ve two players with 20 caps at this level and the team’s core are Championship-level players. The core of Sweden’s squad are mid-table players taken from their domestic league, the top teams of which are at best L1 standard. I thought Sweden had longish periods of control last night – I don’t think with the better quality we have we should be affording weaker opposition to dictate periods of control, especially when we are the home team.

And note also, we are the only team (so far) to drop points to Luxembourg and we needed last night’s win to just keep in touching distance of Sweden for qualification.

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Originally Posted by ifk101

Yes and no.

Good to win last night but whatever about Crawford's impact on the result, my sense is we are not getting the most out of the pool of players available to us. Take last night’s game – individually we have a stronger pool of players than Sweden. We’ve two players with 20 caps at this level and the team’s core are Championship-level players. The core of Sweden’s squad are mid-table players taken from their domestic league, the top teams of which are at best L1 standard. I thought Sweden had longish periods of control last night – I don’t think with the better quality we have we should be affording weaker opposition to dictate periods of control, especially when we are the home team.

And note also, we are the only team (so far) to drop points to Luxembourg and we needed last night’s win to just keep in touching distance of Sweden for qualification.

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Sweden did have longish periods of control but it was like rope a dope. I don't think they really looked like scoring, aside from penalty shouts both ways in first half. Ireland had the better chances on the break, absorbed all the pressure in defence. Maybe the strategy wasn't the greatest given that we left it until literally the last second to take the win but there was method to the approach. I have felt that Kayode has been very isolated in the games I have seen. That was the case against last night. He has a thankless job up there. I'm not sure what the root cause of those gaps between our centre forward and the supporting cast are coming from. It might have a lot to do with Tierney and Wright being fairly poor last night. And I thought Bagan was limited in his passing too.

You're right though regarding the quality. It's great to see Irish players at club levels on par or above counterparts like Sweden and there was technical proficiency there too by a lot of our lads that they didn't match.

Just on Kayode, I thought Tierney was making great efforts to get close to him. Wright was a bit deeper bit I thought he was good overall. The problem with Kayode is, he's not a very good footballer. His movement is predictable, he doesn't make good runs or good decisions, I'd argue that he ends up isolating himself to an extent. Ferguson showed more in his short time on the pitch, admittedly he hasn't done much in previous appearances either, but given his age he looks a much better talent.

Some criticism of Crawford’s handling of Okoflex on this site - it feels that there is a valid point being made here......


https://greenmachinenick.medium.com/...n-7843ede9bd5e

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Originally Posted by Paddy Garcia

Some criticism of Crawford’s handling of Okoflex on this site - it feels that there is a valid point being made here......


https://greenmachinenick.medium.com/...n-7843ede9bd5e

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Read the article and didn't agree with the overall premise of it. But then I thought to myself, what if Okoflex switched to Nigeria and never joined an Irish camp again- would we be referring to Crawford and this camp like the times Rice could have been capped by MON?

MON couldn't have capped Rice because Rice was never in a squad for a competitive game.

Unless Okoflex has found a third nationality then he only qualifies for us and Nigeria. If he wants to go play for Nigeria let him go play for Nigeria. Mipo Odubeko was killing it with West Ham's U23s last season and thought he was a superstar, think he's played more with Huddersfield B team than their first team since moving on loan. If Okoflex doesn't fancy waiting for his chance he can try breaking into Nigeria's attack which is much stronger than ours.

Crawfords comments were unusual, and its hard not to think theres a bit more to all this than meets the eye.

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Originally Posted by JR89

MON couldn't have capped Rice because Rice was never in a squad for a competitive game.

Unless Okoflex has found a third nationality then he only qualifies for us and Nigeria. If he wants to go play for Nigeria let him go play for Nigeria. Mipo Odubeko was killing it with West Ham's U23s last season and thought he was a superstar, think he's played more with Huddersfield B team than their first team since moving on loan. If Okoflex doesn't fancy waiting for his chance he can try breaking into Nigeria's attack which is much stronger than ours.

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MON could have brought him into a squad for a competitive game. And then capped him. The whole point of being called up before you can be capped... that isn't lost on me. But, thanks.

Not capping Rice in a competitive game was only a mistake in retrospect, at no point were there any calls for him to be promoted to the senior team.

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

MON could have brought him into a squad for a competitive game. And then capped him. The whole point of being called up before you can be capped... that isn't lost on me. But, thanks.

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But he did call him up for a competitive game, and the lad said na thanks I fancy playing for England.