Domestic based international team

Seen online that HH has mentioned it's something he is hoping to do, around January. Take a squad of domestic players and play some games to see if there's anyone able for the step up. I know other Nordic/Scandinavian countries do this. Sweden even do a yearly full international if I'm not mistaken, or at least have in the past?

He mentioned he's done it with both Iceland and Jamaica and found it useful.

I also think it is something that would be even more important for the women's team, I've really thought the girls badly need an u21/23 team at the very least for our best domestic players who are sort of in that limbo but have potential, as well as to give some very promising u17/19 players higher level international experience,

I know all this stuff costs money and we're broke, and there's no guarantee it will even happen but the prospect excites me at least.

I'm not sure we have a whole host of players that would magically jump to international standard after one training camp, but there will definitely be a few playing in the league right now who will one day be internationals, and at the very least wouldn't it be excellent for a few stars of the league to gain international recognition.

Anyone want to take a stab at the kind of squad you think he would/should pick? It's too late for the likes of Duffy/Benson/Forrester/Gaffney/Gannon/Hoban/McEleney, but they're the sorts of heads I think this could have really been helpful for in another lifetime. While right now I think Ed Mcginty/Maher/Farrugia and other very promising players in their early to mid 20's could benefit. Maybe I'll come up with a team myself later, I just wanted to throw it out there.

There's a lot of bad vibes about the quality of the league atm, but I think there's certainly some individuals who will make the step up one day, and an awful lot of excellent young lads I wouldn't know as much about as some of you.

FAI probably won't be able to afford it

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

I also think it is something that would be even more important for the women's team, I've really thought the girls badly need an u21/23 team at the very least for our best domestic players who are sort of in that limbo but have potential, as well as to give some very promising u17/19 players higher level international experience,

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Fully agree on this by the way. There are players in the women's premier who are reasonably close to being contributors for the national team squad who just need a small push.

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Originally Posted by cláirseach

Fully agree on this by the way. There are players in the women's premier who are reasonably close to being contributors for the national team squad who just need a small push.

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Absolutely, they were already doing domestic training camps under Vera, I assume that has continued? Why not matches too.

Finances is the big issue of course, but maybe that's where we need to leverage our cooperate sponsors and ofc keep pushing govt.

Imo, we need around 400 youth coaches to visit the 3300 primary schools once a week. Paying for caps for players who aren't at international standards should be way down the list

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Originally Posted by Buckett

Imo, we need around 400 youth coaches to visit the 3300 primary schools once a week. Paying for caps for players who aren't at international standards should be way down the list

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The list is so long I wouldn't even know where to start, I guess if they promoted this kind of fixture(s) properly and got a crowd to games it could pay for itself. Many if's, but if HH has gone public with the idea I assume they spoke about it before he took the gig.

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

Absolutely, they were already doing domestic training camps under Vera, I assume that has continued?

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Don't think so. I think the plan is to transition to an u23 team, but there has been no time frame given for this. Some vague announcements and that's all. It would really want to be soon.

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

Anyone want to take a stab at the kind of squad you think he would/should pick? It's too late for the likes of Duffy/Benson/Forrester/Gaffney/Gannon/Hoban/McEleney, but they're the sorts of heads I think this could have really been helpful for in another lifetime. While right now I think Ed Mcginty/Maher/Farrugia and other very promising players in their early to mid 20's could benefit. Maybe I'll come up with a team myself later, I just wanted to throw it out there.

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I’ll have a stab at it. 23 man squad below, attempted to keep the ages low as there’s obviously more potential of an eventual senior cap for players under 25. Most of them will never be capped at senior level for us IMO, but that’s not the aim as HH has said if one or two come through it then it’s worthwhile in his opinion. I’ve included Dawson Devoy as he’ll be a Bohs player today or by the end of the week at the latest. I’m sure there’s players I’ve missed out on that are worth a shout of being included too.

Breakdown of players current ages is;
25: 1 (Went against the younger age thought process as Farrugia isn’t far away from making our senior squad if he stops getting injured every few months)
24: 3
23: 8
22: 2
21: 4
20: 2
19: 2
16: 1

Keepers
Ed McGinty (24), Brian Maher (23)

Defenders
Ronan Boyce (23), Darragh Power (23), Neil Farrugia (25), Joe Redmond (24), Luke Turner (22), Josh Honohan (23), Leigh Kavanagh (20)

Midfielders
Adam O'Reilly (23), James Clarke (23), Ross Tierney (23), James McManus (19), Dawson Devoy (22), Conan Noonan (21), Kailin Barlow (21), Brandon Kavanagh (23), Darragh Burns (21), Ryan O'Kane (20), Warren Davis (19)

Strikers
Johnny Kenny (21), Colm Whelan (24), Mason Melia (16)

I'd be including the likes of gramhe burke and Jack byrne (or equivalents other clubs) I'm sure the manager would like ro look at some guys as more immediate bit part players rather than an extended under 21s.
Could be wrong I guess his first domestic squad will show where his thi King is at
Most managers even the progressive type are still interested in short term fixes given the results nature of the business

It would be good to see LoI representatve development teams, but hardly new in that the old LoI selections were done in the past. Focus on youth? Well isnt that what underage internationl football is for, best domestic players are called up and in greater numbers as you go down the ages. Not knocking the idea but its been treated by some commentators as revolutionary for the domestic game, its not really. The appointment has also been greeted as a top appointment - Lagerback was who made Iceland hard to beat with HH as assistant, joint managers sounded as convoluted as the McCarty/Kenny succession plan. Iceland qualified for a WC but went out in the group with a fizzle after being tipped to do well after Euro 16 and even in that comp they were well beaten by a french side that Ireland had on the ropes, beating England was no great achievement albeit a famous result for Iceland and thoroughly amusing for everyone else. Jamaica are considered to have underachieved under HH. It will be a return to hard to beat but dull, better than fancy football and humiliation. If Dave Rogers was appointed I think there would be some relief that someone is in the job. Until there is a pretty massive investmet in the game, lots more coaches, regional academies at minimum with a lot more contact hours, investment in facilities and not window dressing of spectator amenities for the top flight - basically to do what Iceland and their govt backed FA, the real driving force behind Icelands improvement.

Do we now change the player development patchways, Crawford et al drop the amount of technical development and coach football out of kids in favour of highly structured systems from 12s to 21s? Clubs have a huge role in the national teams development obviously and that is where change happens when investment happens and imo Halgrimmson already has the surname The SUN pun over his head.

Maybe I just dont like the formalising of 2nd class caps for domestic players in the close season - call them up to the full senior squad if good enough, even the extended squad or dont bother. Let the youth development happen in the youth structure.

I think it would be no harm having 2/3 more experienced heads, might help with standards around a squad if nothing else, I don't think there'd need to be any hard rules about how he put a team together, that's for him to decide who he thinks could contribute, but in general I like the kind of squad 2 year Contract is suggesting. Melia is an obvious great hope within the group that has a chance of one day being a senior international, but you never know how some lads react after returning home from abroad too, Keith Fahey happened before and it will likely happen again.

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Originally Posted by Nesta99

It would be good to see LoI representatve development teams, but hardly new in that the old LoI selections were done in the past. Focus on youth? Well isnt that what underage internationl football is for, best domestic players are called up and in greater numbers as you go down the ages. Not knocking the idea but its been treated by some commentators as revolutionary for the domestic game, its not really. The appointment has also been greeted as a top appointment - Lagerback was who made Iceland hard to beat with HH as assistant, joint managers sounded as convoluted as the McCarty/Kenny succession plan. Iceland qualified for a WC but went out in the group with a fizzle after being tipped to do well after Euro 16 and even in that comp they were well beaten by a french side that Ireland had on the ropes, beating England was no great achievement albeit a famous result for Iceland and thoroughly amusing for everyone else. Jamaica are considered to have underachieved under HH. It will be a return to hard to beat but dull, better than fancy football and humiliation. If Dave Rogers was appointed I think there would be some relief that someone is in the job. Until there is a pretty massive investmet in the game, lots more coaches, regional academies at minimum with a lot more contact hours, investment in facilities and not window dressing of spectator amenities for the top flight - basically to do what Iceland and their govt backed FA, the real driving force behind Icelands improvement.

Do we now change the player development patchways, Crawford et al drop the amount of technical development and coach football out of kids in favour of highly structured systems from 12s to 21s? Clubs have a huge role in the national teams development obviously and that is where change happens when investment happens and imo Halgrimmson already has the surname The SUN pun over his head.

Maybe I just dont like the formalising of 2nd class caps for domestic players in the close season - call them up to the full senior squad if good enough, even the extended squad or dont bother. Let the youth development happen in the youth structure.

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I'd say you're preaching to the choir here that anyone who is a fan of the LOI would agree that the key to almost all future success is sustained investment and development, no one manager will save us that's for sure, and it'll probably take a decade at best to catch up to what even smaller nations are doing let alone be where the general footballing public think we should be.

I think the idea of this, is that is a stepping stone between the youth and senior structure. I've mentioned that I think honestly it's a greater imperative for the women's than men's team, but I read somewhere that between 5-7 players that played in the 16 and 18 tournaments for Iceland were capped in these kinds of domestic internationals first, so HH has first hand experience of it being useful. We have a much stronger base to pick from so I doubt it will have an immediate impact or the same success, but over a number of years, who knows.

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Originally Posted by Nesta99

Iceland qualified for a WC but went out in the group with a fizzle after being tipped to do well after Euro 16 and even in that comp they were well beaten by a french side that Ireland had on the ropes, beating England was no great achievement albeit a famous result for Iceland and thoroughly amusing for everyone else. Jamaica are considered to have underachieved under HH.

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This all seems a bit harsh, no?

They were pushing to knock Argentina out of the World Cup right until the very last minute, when Croatia (who got to the final) scored in the 90th minute against them. Had they taken two draws in the group (off Argentina and Croatia, both of whom were ultimately knocked out by the winners) it would have been a bloody good result.

At no stage did we have France on the ropes in Euro 2016; we got an early penalty and once France sussed us out tactically, they changed things around and destroyed us certainly for the second half.

Beating England was a great achievement, even if England (pre-Southgate) had an amusing habit of such defeats. It would have been comparable to Slovakia hanging on for another minute in this Euros.

Don't know much about Jamaica, but they hadn't been at the Copa since 2016 and had lost all six of their previous matches at it, so losing all three games again here isn't a huge disaster.

That said, I do completely agree with "Maybe I just dont like the formalising of 2nd class caps for domestic players in the close season - call them up to the full senior squad if good enough, even the extended squad or dont bother."

On the proposed squad - Burke and Byrne have had call-ups; I don't think they offered anything we don't already have (especially given Byrne has been struggling for form with recent injuries) so I'm not seeing the value of giving them another chance. Devoy was increasingly out of favour at a fourth tier side and has come back home, which is hardly the stuff of international call-ups. McGinty is the same.

I find it hard to justify an out-of-season LoI national team experiment when our top clubs are struggling against Icelandic/pre-season Gibraltar clubs tbh.

Not totally against this in principle, but wouldn’t the timing be a big issue? Teams only coming back to pre season training in January, so it’s hard to see much benefit. I’d be happier if the manager continued to attend games in the league regularly tbh, and if anyone catches his eye maybe include them in a friendly squad. At least they’d feel like they were there on merit if that was the case. Really, we are a good bit away from call ups for domestic players I think we’d all agree. If anyone did catch the eye to that extent they’d be gone from the league pretty sharpish.

It would be very difficult to justify as a full international if it's essentially an under-21 squad, so i think you'd definitely need to call up the likes of Coyle/Grace/Duffy/ Amond even if there's not much prospect they'd ever get a senior call.

You could potentially add in any Irish players based in other leagues with summer calendars - e.g. Derrick Williams, Kevin Long, Lee Desmond and Connor Ronan in the States

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Originally Posted by Burnsie

It would be very difficult to justify as a full international if it's essentially an under-21 squad, so i think you'd definitely need to call up the likes of Coyle/Grace/Duffy/ Amond even if there's not much prospect they'd ever get a senior call.

You could potentially add in any Irish players based in other leagues with summer calendars - e.g. Derrick Williams, Kevin Long, Lee Desmond and Connor Ronan in the States

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Good point, the likes of Amond would be a great mentor for the other strikers in the squad for example and they’d learn a lot from him on the training pitch alone

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I find it hard to justify an out-of-season LoI national team experiment when our top clubs are struggling against Icelandic/pre-season Gibraltar clubs tbh.

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This is the major issue to be addressed - Víkingur are semi-pro with a ground capacity of less than 1,500 and an average attendance of just over 1,100. Attendances in the top division in Iceland range from 1,400 down to 400. Most of the players have never played outside Iceland, except for a couple of the older players who spent some time in Norway and Sweden. Shamrock Rovers should be beating this team comfortably.

The Gibraltar stuff is even worse - the Gibraltar FA struggle to keep clubs in existence and clubs regularly drop out of the league. All the games are played at the same ground which has a capacity of 2,000 (the Victoria Stadium) and the FA don't record attendances -I couldn't even find confirmation that there are paid attendances at the games - its not recorded in club accounts. Bruno's Magpies were formed as a pub team formed in 2013. St. Joseph's have been around longer. Both clubs are up to their eyeballs in debt given that they play on a piece of rock that has a population about the size of Bray. The Magpies currently have debts of almost £1m and lost almost £400K in 2022 and St Joseph's are not far behind with current debts of over £560K. St Joseph's are owned by the former owner of Burnley. A lot of the Spanish players who play for the Gibraltar clubs are in their mid-to late- 30s, come from part-time divisions in Spain and are trying to milk the clubs for what they can get. The clubs in Gibraltar rely on getting UEFA money to keep going - but there are also major expenses involved for them in competing.

How the likes of Derry and Shelbourne can struggle against these clubs opens up major question marks about what is going on with the LOI - and I have no idea what the answers are. And how anyone could think that LOI players are anywhere near the Irish squad is beyond belief.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I find it hard to justify an out-of-season LoI national team experiment when our top clubs are struggling against Icelandic/pre-season Gibraltar clubs tbh.

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Originally Posted by Jolly Red Giant

And how anyone could think that LOI players are anywhere near the Irish squad is beyond belief.

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I think you're both overlooking clubs' rank bad management in Europe. If something's contributing to getting beaten by lower clubs I'd lay it at the door of inexperienced, over-cautious and tatically naive coaches who set out not to lose, rather than instinctively suggest the players aren't capable of playing to a higher standard if they were let. I'd like to see how the best 18-22 players in the league would respond to a week or more of international coaching from coaches who don't have an inbuilt inferiority complex no matter the opposition. Actually, I'd like to see some LoI managers called up to the international coaching team every game.

I'm not (equally) naive to think that there are more than a handful of players in the league who might become more than bit-part members of the senior squad. But if you accept that at any given time we only have about 40 players available for the senior team (excluding the too old/young, no not/never good enough, too low down the divisions, crocked, suspended, fence-sitting Granny rulers etc) finding just 5 in the LoI to boost numbersis no bad thing. All five lining up in a qualifier against Spain might be a bit hairy, but I can't offer a rational argument against a cap here and there against a lower seed, or in June friendlies when some players in the UK have been mentally on their holliers for a month, and it doesn't have to speak of tokenism if they've earned the right to be there.

I'm not sure how the January date would sit with clubs in pre-season, maybe a different date would be better. Burnsie's idea of calling up players in other out of season leagues would make it less a LoI XI than an Ireland development squad, and I do think that age should be no barrier to a call up: being in a squad with the likes of Pat Hoban and Derrick Williams offers a promising young player something he won't get from being around all young players.

I suppose it will all come done to cost at the end of the day, and how attractive the opposition might be is important. I can't see enough enthusiasm for games against the Irish or Welsh Leagues that would fill Tallaght or even Turner's Cross, much less bring in some broadcast revenue.

FWIW I don't think the issues in Europe are down to a tactical naivety or entirely down to poor players. Some parts of both are true but I think the broader issue is just the size of the league. If you were to sit any LOI fan down and give them a list of teams and their managers they would be able to give a pretty comprehensive overview of how those teams set up, who their best players are and what the strengths and weaknesses are. That's because (in the premier) teams play each other at least 4 times. If you get drawn together in the cup it can be 5, that also excludes preseason. If that's included Dundalk and Drogheda will have played each other 6 times in a calendar year! In theory this should free up people to be scouting ahead when it comes to the European competition but what I actually think is happening is that teams are deprioritising this role because on a day to day basis the return on investment is too small and it's affecting them when they come up against someone they haven't played a dozen times over the last few years. It can then take time to settle into the rhythm of a game and you can find yourself behind before you know it. Especially if the weather conditions are against you.

I also think LOITV has actually been a massive help to opposition teams in terms of being able to scout, something which must have nearly been impossible before covid.

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

I also think LOITV has actually been a massive help to opposition teams in terms of being able to scout, something which must have nearly been impossible before covid.

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Absolutely, if your the manager of an Icelandic team or one from Gibraltar or any country that regularly comes up against LOI teams in Europe. The 120 odd quid for a season ticket is pennies to what you could earn beating a LOI team in Europe.

Various LOI managers have mentioned that most leagues in Europe upload all game to Wyscout which coaches use to get a gauge on European opposition and players for scouting also and has been in place for a good few years at this stage, prior to LOITVs existence. I think Duff mentioned that either St Joseph’s or no Gibraltarian teams use it however so he was going into the first leg almost blind in terms of how they play