Only turned 18 last week and highly rated. Has played RB and CB this season for Pats.
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Love this move if it’s confirmed. Good transfer fee up front for St Pats, and James gets a solid season of senior football before moving properly to Italy after the summer. At Pats also get a season of his talent too. Hopefully more youngsters will continue to think broadly about prospects outside of England
I wonder if this is an easier option for those with foreign born parents, certainly id imagine it is for those who weren't born here but moved as children. Perhaps if more immigrant sons move it will entice the "natives" too.
Great for Pat's
It’s a great move and it’s great to see our young talent moving to other strong footballing cultures and leagues. Hopefully more to come.
The cynic in me wonders whether Udinese see him as a legitimate talent who will add value to their first team soon or whether they are speculating on an asset that has future resale value irrespective of playing time. That’s been a bit of their model recently so remains to be seen I suppose.
I’ve seen a lot of sources mention him being Ghanaian born but he’s been with us right through the underage ranks, has played/won the Blue Riband and domestic leagues so you’d have to think he’ll stay with us.
Either way, all the above being said, it’s brilliant news all round, great for the league and can’t help but put a pep in the step.
i kinda get what you say here.... but not sure too many other leagues would consider one of its brighter talents moving on as being great for their league.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
ah that's the reality though. Most of Europe's leagues are stepping stone leagues. We've barely even been seen as that. More of these transfer fees now should help us retain talent down the line. And Udinese is far better than Mansfield and the likes. If he and others are successful it'll hopefully drive transfer fees up. The LOI has had the pi$$ taken out of it for two long really given what clubs spend on decent players these days.
Id be confident to that he will stay with us but id still be capping him soon enough :)Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
Yeah, fair point. I think Stutts is right though. We kinda have to accept our lot as a selling (or stepping stone) league and maximize sales revenue. Its good to see Rovers and Pats figure out how to do that in recent years (Bohs too but to a far lesser extent). To see that league players are attracting Italian and German clubs as next steps instead of the Mansfields :) and Greenock Mortons feels good.Quote:
Originally Posted by jbyrne
Yep. Every single player sold should have a sell on clause. They make more money from that then winning the league
If you look at most national squads (well, exclude the big countries like England, France, etc) the most common profile of players is that they start in their domestic league and leave it around 21/22 for a decent fee.Quote:
Originally Posted by jbyrne
If the LoI can get into the habit of selling players for this sort of fee - and if they justify it of course - then this is a real positive for the LoI.
Imagine 4/5 of these transfers a year - €2m coming into LoI clubs annually? Would make a huge difference.
Its progress from when most of these players would leave long before they ever played in the leagueQuote:
Originally Posted by jbyrne
Son of the former Olympic race walker Rob Heffernan. Random one!
Got a belated medal at the 2012 Olympics when the winner was disqualified four years later.
Would still be better for the LoI I think if players were at least getting a bit of senior football under their belts before making the move - this could be a 500k transfer for Cork in a couple of years for example. But let's see how it goes.
Not the only young lad that's been in Germany recently. Stephen Ireland has set up his own agency and had both Mark O'Mahony (Cork) and Luke O'Brien (Pat's) over in Germany this month too.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Heffernan is on a professional contract with Cork so they should receive a good fee for him anyway. If they could hang onto him for a season and he can gain some first team experience that could increase his transfer value massively though.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
If they get 100k with clauses thrown in they'd be doing well. Probably has a cheap release clause. Good article in the Athletic today about Irish football and they mention bridge transfers. Agents threatening clubs that if they don't make it easy for their players to move on to a bigger club they'll move them somewhere else that will agree to it. Kinda like Aaron Drinan moving from Cork to Waterford and then over to Ipswich a couple of months later. Be surprised if Stephen Ireland is letting lads sign professional contracts at 16 without clauses that allow them move onto bigger clubs cheap enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
I believe their entitle to compensation on top of the transfer fee so I would be quite confident Cork would get a decent sum for him and I would definitely expect it to exceed 100k, word on Twitter is that despite the rumours there is still strong talk of of Heffernan signing for AC Milan, supposedly they have arrived in Milan today anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by JR89
I think things are better now with these transfers and also yes I would expect there to be clauses in the contract, it must also be said that Heffernan is a much better prospect than players like Drinan so I would think these clubs would think twice before trying to gamble on a player like Heffernan, if there’s competition especially.
Great to see Heff being looked at by Leverkusen and Milan. Has anyone heard of Cork youngster, David Dunne? Much younger but apparently playing at an unbelievable level and said to be nailed on for professional football at the highest level.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
O’Mahony signed a pro deal a few days ago with Cork. Good player, seems like a decent lad. Natural goal scorer.Quote:
Originally Posted by JR89
Abankwah made his Udinese debut today coming on in the 86th minute in a 3-0 loss to Bologna.
Question asked on YBIG have two Irish players ever appeared in the same top flight game before?
The last top flight continental game(ie Spain, Italy, or Germany) with two Irish players I could find was a la liga game between Osasuna and Sporting Gijon in December 1988 that featured Michael Robinson and Kevin Moran
But that's the only site with the lineups I could find, so open to correction on it
https://www.bdfutbol.com/en/p/p.php?id=17156
Did Harte and Finnan timelines cross at Levante & Espanyol?
No, Harte returned to England in 2007 to play for Sunderland, Finnan went to Espanyol in 2008
Moran and Aldridge were in La Liga at the same time; did they meet?
Ditto John Byrne and Mick McCarthy in Ligue 1.
Did Cascarino cross paths with any Irish men in France?
according to Wikipedia, le Havre were not in ligue 1 in the 1989-90 season when Mick was at LyonQuote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989...nch_Division_1
Aldridge and Moran were in la Liga at the same time for only one season, 1989-90, but only Aldridge played in the two games between Real Sociedad and Sporting Gijon that season
It's the same site with the lineups again, so it's tough to verify
https://www.bdfutbol.com/en/p/p.php?id=17545
https://www.bdfutbol.com/en/p/p.php?id=17735
Going by Wikipedia, he was the only Irish player in Ligue 1 at that timeQuote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
https://tr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligu...istesi#Irlanda
That page is in Turkish, and is out of date - Messi isn't on it!. Unfortunately, the English language version is completely empty
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...igue_1_players
Did Alan Mahon and Phil Babb not play any matches together at Sporting?
Frank Stapleton and John Byrne at Le Havre in the late 80s? Or were they in the second division by that stage?
They did, but I did specify that this was in the top continental leagues, ie Spanish, German or ItalianQuote:
Originally Posted by Trequartista20
Stapleton was only there for the 88-89 season, when they were in Ligue 2Quote:
Originally Posted by Trequartista20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988%E...nch_Division_2
Where Alan Campbell and Liam Buckley at Racing Santander at the same time. Campbell was there between 84 and 86
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_C...yed%20for%20Sh
Whilst Buckley was there between 86 and 87
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Buckley
Not clear whether their spells there crossed over but Santander were in La Liga in 1986
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_de_Santander
looks like Campbell move to Logrones when Buckley moved to Santander: https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-42322612.html
Quote:
Liam Buckley
Racing Santander (1986-1987)
One Dubliner (Buckley) replaced another (Campbell) at Santander for the 1986/87 season and ex-Rovers man Buckley, who moved to Spain after a happy two-year spell with Belgian side Waragem also adapted well to life in Spain, making his debut away to Barcelona, up against Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes who were also debutants. After one year in Spain, Buckley moved on again, to Switzerland but five goals in 35 games that season in Spain was a decent return.
Great to see the progression of our young players.
Abankwah, Guessand, Cocetta reflect on debut joy
https://www.udinese.it/news/squad/ab...t-on-debut-joy
Quote:
Abankwah: “I'm very happy to have made my full Serie A debut. I want to thank the gaffer and all my team-mates. It was a difficult game against a good team. I was very tired and Ielt cramp but I just tried to do my best."
Has he played any football all season? I think he's been on the bench pretty much every game but not come on. Is there a reserve league or anything that he's been playing?
I was watching this last night, and he was RCB in a five at the back & he did fine up to the injury on the hour, glad he's saying its cramp today as he was injured blocking a shot and he immediately sat down and signalled to the bench, he was holding his quadriceps and it didn't look great at the time. In play he had one nice reading of a deep cross which he came back out to nod away, a player has drifted in late behind the defence but he copped it & most likely stopped a goal there. He was beaten in the box once when he might have been stronger in the challenge but there was cover and it didn't come to anything. He was available for ball but not really demanding it, and he looked to play the safe ball most times, back across the defensive line rather than into midfield. He did fine, looked calm and was getting on with it. The winning goal minutes after he had to come off was a shot from the RCB area FWIW and Juve hadn't had any shots away from there while he was out there.