Under-19 Squad

[JR89]

Has Finneran ditched us already?!

Clubs aren't obligated to release players for U19 friendlies I believe. Even if they fall within an official FIFA window.

[JR89]

Also checking Transfermarkt he's yet to appear for Newcastle's U21s so likely injured too along with Jaden Umeh whose in neither squad.

[tetsujin1979]

Might be injured. He had to go off at half time against Millwall last week for Newcastle's U18 side, and didn't play in their game against Blackburn at the weekend
https://www.newcastleunited.com/en/n...ll-under-18s-1

[elatedscum]

Good to see a first call up for Jacob Devaney. First time hearing about the keeper Cian O’Shea but Nicky Colgan is the goalkeeping coach for Stockport
County.

McGlinchy is a good footballer, very capable left back. I think Corey would still be ahead of him for this age group but he’s playing an age up.

It’s interesting that none of what you’d have considered the obvious wide players for that 2006 group are involved:

Trent Kone Doherty (just back from injury, so possibly Liverpool haven’t released him - not sure about the rest)
Shaun Wade
Nikson Okosun
Luke Kehir

Have a soft spot for Anto Dodd who isn’t involved. I think it is often an unusual age group because you get lads breaking into their senior teams who were maybe never involved at underage level but someone like Cathal McCarthy starts to break in at the centre half for UCD and suddenly everyone takes notice (Jonny Kenny at Sligo was a good example of this), then you’ve got lads at the more established teams who could struggle a bit more to break in, just in terms of squad depth (Dodd and Bartley at Pats, for example have Forrester, Lennon, Palmer, Bolger, Leavy, and Kavanagh ahead of them). Then you’ve got lads moving across to foreign academies who you wouldn’t expect to play senior football yet (Romeo, Naj Razi, Danny McGrath, Freddie Turley) - and there’s players coming from outside academies to replace them (Ryan Kelly was at Crumlin Utd last season I think) and then the second and third gen lads who start to break into teams in England either first team for lower clubs (O’Shea now, John Clarke at Reading a typical example of this) or u21s at prem academies (Devaney this time round, Tom Cannon a good example of this) who we want to involve, and you’ve got no u18s, so you’ve probably got double the player pool at each age group and half the opportunities

Would start as many as 7 of the 2007 group starting based on that squad:

Gill 2007 (both keepers are 2007)

Harnett (2007)
Grante
Turley
O’Sullivan

Devaney (2007)
Romeo
Ochoa Moloney (2007)

Orazi (2007)
Melia (2007)
Cathal O’Sullivan (2007)

And there’s plenty of good u18 players not included either due to injury or squad crunch (Matthew Moore, Niall McAndrew, Luke O’Donnell).

[Olé Olé]

I see in Stockport County's press release that Cian O'Shea played for England schoolboys. No doubt Colgan played his part but his name is a give away. Only 16.

Cian seems to be a popular name among the Irish in England. Cian Coleman, Cian Hayes and now Cian O'Shea with the first two definitely being second or third generation.

[tetsujin1979]

You play schoolboy football where you go to school, nationality doesn't come into it. Ryan Giggs had schoolboy caps for England

[Razors left peg]

Joe O'Brien Whitmarsh not in this squad or U21s. Considering he made is Southampton debut this week he's a fairly big exclusion?

[Eirambler]

He's overage. Most of the 2005s will have to wait a year now and then try to break into the Under 21 team. This is the period, in the second year of each Under 21 campaign, where you have 22 year old lads still playing Under 21 and where not having an Under 20 side hurts us.

[Razors left peg]

He's overage. Most of the 2005s will have to wait a year now and then try to break into the Under 21 team. This is the period, in the second year of each Under 21 campaign, where you have 22 year old lads still playing Under 21 and where not having an Under 20 side hurts us.

It's also where Crawford focusing on a core group of players to try win games rather than looking at overall development hurts us

[ColourfulPeanut]

Being born in an odd year is a serious disadvantage at this stage of the cycle. You're too old for U19s and likely far too young for U21s so you're stuck in no man's land until the next U21 campaign.

Someone born at the start of an even year gets so much more time than a person born near the end of an odd year. We're crying out for an U20 team.

[Olé Olé]

You play schoolboy football where you go to school, nationality doesn't come into it. Ryan Giggs had schoolboy caps for England

What's your point?

[The Fly]

Good to see a first call up for Jacob Devaney.

Yep, the more the merrier (particularly when it comes to midfielders).

He’s the captain of United’s under-18 side, and a defensive midfielder.

[elatedscum]

Being born in an odd year is a serious disadvantage at this stage of the cycle. You're too old for U19s and likely far too young for U21s so you're stuck in no man's land until the next U21 campaign.

Someone born at the start of an even year gets so much more time than a person born near the end of an odd year. We're crying out for an U20 team.

Not sure which is worse. The 2004 kids could theoretically go from October 2002 to September 2025 without having a game for their age group.

As it happens, the 21s have used 4 2004 kids (Abankwah, O’Brien, Grehan, McJannett, Murphy) and 4 2005 kids in (Vata, Murphy, Curtis, O’Mahony) this campaign with another 3 of each called up but not capped…

Overall - capped across all campaigns:

17 x 2002
19 x 2003
6 x 2004
4 x 2005

Called up and not capped:

4 x 2002
6 x 2003
3 x 2004
3 x 2005

The vast vast majority of your squad for next campaign won’t be involved in this one. 36 of the 46 will be ineligible and very likely that someone like Rocco Vata will be a senior international by next campaign (like basically Bazunu, Omobamidele, Ebosele, Parrott, Cannon, Ferguson). Then a few will fall off (like Odubeko)

Once again, absolutely no idea what an u20 team would cost but it’s probably I dunno 50 or 100k a year really well spent. We do it with the u15s and u16s without thinking about it.

I think if you’re running 5 underage sides, the cost of an additional team wouldn’t be that much in terms of training facilities, accommodation, coaching staff, medical staff, flights, insurance, training gear. The majority of those things, training facilities and gear are free, accommodation, flights and insurance get cheaper in bulk. It’d be a pretty attractive gig for a lot of young coaches, physios, personal trainers etc.

Maybe that would a good way to attract sponsorship. Go to Tesco/Dunnes/LIDL/Aldi/Supervalu, and say look, we need an u20 team and we can’t afford it. It’ll cost X per year to run and we’ll make a big deal about it - how they’re the Lidl u20s and how essential it is and how Lidl are contributing to the development of young Irish footballers.

Then use that model and do the same for u18s with the BOI/AIB/Revolut. I feel like that’s a deal that rugby and the GAA would easily get over the line.

The greater issue again is really about government funding, organisational structures in underage football, FAI use of funds etc etc - but something like an u20 team does really matter. You can’t allow a three year gap to develop between when an underage player is called up to play for Ireland between age 18 and 21, for player development purposes, self scouting purposes, for committing players - they’re formative years in a young person’s life.

Guys like Justin Ferizaj and Kevin Zefi, being chased by Albania, while basically spending in their case, two years without a game to play.

Next it’ll be the 2006 kids, if they get knocked out in two months from the u19s - this u21 campaign and the next 21s campaign aren’t their campaigns, it’s the 2029 euros that they’ll be qualifying for. So guys like Romeo Akachukwu, Naj Razi, Trent Kone Doherty, Shaun Wade (all dual eligible as it happens) - they’re sitting around doing nothing until probably September 2027 when qualification starts.

[Eirambler]

Absolutely, I don't know why we don't do it (and the one time we did try it made such a half arsed effort at it). Would rather see the money spent on that than the January international idea that HH put forward (not that that was a bad idea, but this would be a better use of limited resources I think).

[elatedscum]

Here’s a theoretical u20 squad that could have been called up this window. Just threw it together off the top of my head, so doesn’t really equate too much for injuries, form etc. but just to have a sense at the players who would be eligible for the next campaign and are sitting around rather than playing international football this week:

1. Andrew Wogan
2. Owen Mason
3. Reece Byrne
4. Connor O’Brien
5. Josh Seary
6. Aaron O’Reilly
7. Cathal Heffernan
8. Harry Nevin
9. John Ryan
10. Jacob Slater
11. John Clarke
12. Ed McJannett
13. Cian Coleman
14. Justin Ferizaj
15. Adam Murphy
16. Harry Vaughan
17. Ronan Maher
18. Jamie Mullins
19. Joe O’Brien-Whitmarsh
20. Glory Nzingo
21. Ben Quinn
22. Kevin Zefi
23. Tom Bloxham
24. Luke Pearce
25. Tommy Lonergan
26. Caden McLoughlin

[nigel-harps1954]

Todays game versus France is being streamed on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/B4Slovenia

They seem to be showing all the games from the Slovenia Nations Cup.

[elatedscum]

Luke Kehir seems to have replaced Ike Orazi in the squad judging by the team sheet. Shame, Ike is such an electric football, hope he’s developing well over in France, an absolute joy to watch at u16, u17 level

[tetsujin1979]

lineup here

[Razors left peg]

Lost 2-1 to a much physically stronger French team. Played well in parts and it was a decent game.

[Paddy Garcia]

Todays game versus France is being streamed on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/B4Slovenia

They seem to be showing all the games from the Slovenia Nations Cup.

Many thanks for sharing the link.

That was a footballing lesson - we could not have complained if they scored 4.