Who are the potential standouts ? and years of hope in foot.ie threads they will make the breakthrough !
Squad announced yesterday for the Qualification Round of the 2022 UEFA Under 17 Championship: https://www.fai.ie/ireland/news/mu17...uro-qualifiers
Qualifying Round Squad Elite Round Squad Goalkeepers
Fintan Doherty(Derry City)
Conor Walsh(Sligo Rovers)Goalkeepers
Fintan Doherty (Derry City)
Conor Walsh (Sligo Rovers)Defenders
Luke Browne(Shelbourne)
Sam Curtis(St. Patrick’s Athletic)
Cathal Heffernan(Cork City)
Ruadhan Kane(Klub Kildare)
Daniel Kelly(Sligo Rovers)
Luke O’Brien(St. Patrick’s Athletic)Defenders
Sam Curtis (St. Patrick's Athletic)
Cathal Heffernan (AC Milan)
Dan McHale (UCD)
Sean McHale (St. Patrick's Athletic)
Luke O'Brien (St. Patrick's Athletic)
Ivan Savshak (Honved Budapest)Midfielders
Justin Ferizaj(Shamrock Rovers)
Gavin Hodgkin(Shelbourne)
Darius Lipsivc(St. Patrick’s Athletic)
James McManus(Bohemians)
Rocco Vata(Celtic)Midfielders
Justin Ferizaj (Shamrock Rovers)
Darius Lipsiuc (St. Patrick's Athletic)
James McManus (Bohemians)
Senan Mullen (Dundalk)
Adam Murphy (St. Patrick's Athletic)
Rocco Vata (Celtic)Forwards
Trent Kone Doherty(Derry City)
Liam Murray(Cork City)
Caden McLoughlin(Villareal)
Alex Nolan(St. Patrick’s Athletic)
Mark O’Mahony(Cork City)
Franco Umeh(Cork City)
Kevin Zefi(Inter Milan)Forwards
Thomas Bloxham (Tottenham Hotspur)
Caden McLoughlin (Villarreal)
Mark O'Mahony (Cork City)
Gideon Tetteh (Shamrock Rovers)
Franco Umeh (Cork City)
Kevin Zefi (Inter Milan)
The group is to be hosted in Cork, with Ireland playing their games at Turner's Cross, and the other games to be played at the Mardyke. Ticket details in the link above
it's a tough group, aside from Andorra, but with home advantage we should look to finish in the top twoUEFA Under-17 European Championship Qualifying Round - Group 5
Thursday, October 7 | Republic of Ireland MU17 v Andorra MU17, Turner’s Cross, KO 7pm
Sunday, October 10 | Republic of Ireland MU17 v North Macedonia MU17, Turner’s Cross, KO 7pm
Wednesday, October 13 | Republic of Ireland MU17 v Poland MU17, Turner’s Cross, 1pm
Andorra highlights
Elite round discussion: https://foot.ie/threads/270415-2022-...=1#post2105627
More info
uefa.com - Under 17
2022 UEFA European Under 17 Championship
2022 UEFA European Under 17 Championship Qualifying Round Group 5
2022 UEFA European Under 17 Championship Elite Round Group 8
Who are the potential standouts ? and years of hope in foot.ie threads they will make the breakthrough !
Heffernan had trials in Germany, Ferizaj is supposed to be very good, McLoughlin has signed a professional contract with Villareal, and Zefi is probably the most well known from the squad after signing for Inter.Originally Posted by ltfc_2004
North Macedonia hardly a tough draw either, you would imagine?
More of an unknown quantity, the had a pretty tough group in their last U17 group - Belgium, Poland, and Liechtenstein - and lost to the two top seeds, but still managed to score against both and could have gotten a draw against Poland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_U...cation#Group_1
Those guys + Curtis and Doherty are still u16s, so while they may not standout as much this week, they’re guys who long term could be ones to watch
Sam Curtis is 2005, he’s born in December though so very close to 2006 but just short.
Trent Doherty is 2006 and ofcourse played against Malta for the u16s in September.
My bad !
[wrong thread - tried to delete]
Rising soccer star Cathal Heffernan ready to add new chapter to Irish family’s story of sporting success: https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-40924526.html
Nothing from the FAI yet in the first game against Andorra, that kicks off in half an hour, but the lineups are on uefa.com
https://www.uefa.com/under17/match/2...nd-vs-andorra/
I was at it. Comfortable win though Andorra tired badly as it progressed. Ireland looked good but it's hard to read too much into it given the opposition. Zefi caught the eye a few times, took too much out of it a few times but he'll learn. The other games will reveal a lot more.
Good review on the examiner: https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/...-40715963.html
interesting stat, if true
Wasn't there a few games with a team that had more than half of the players from Shamrock Rovers?Was this really the first competitive international fixture (from U17 up, at least) with no Ireland player involved tied to an English club?
Lot of talk on social media, that this is the first time - at any men's level (in a competitive game) - that an Ireland side has not contained a player playing with an English club.
Momentous if true.
Here they come! It’s the charge of the “Thanks” Brigade!
Yet people will celebrate the fact the zefi signed for inter. Is the academy at inter better than let's say the academy at Chelsea or man City? When you see the young English talent been produced through English academies I don't think you could say Italian academies are superior to English ones. Have irish academies any chance of matching the quality of English academies? Will players miss out been in an English academy between 16 and 19 up against the best of their age groups from across the world or will the trade off of staying in ireland with family support, ongoing education and exposure to senior football in the League of Ireland be superior for their longterm development?
And how many lads have gone into or come through the City or Chelsea academies successfully for us recently? Or ever? Bazunu is slightly different in that he's a keeper. Is Italy a better place for a keeper? That's my counter to the England Italy comparison on Zefi. The celebration or whatever you want to call it is justified in my view.
The Ireland issue is separate. The concern is with the standard of coaching they will receive and if it will be on a full time basis. The facilities are another aspect. There are a few.
Yeah, I don't really understand the sense of celebration that our 16 and 17 year olds no longer have access to some of the best football academies in the world, in a country where the same language is spoken as we use and is right on our doorstep. Especially when our own youth development system is nowhere near ready to step up and plug the gap.
It feels a bit like English people celebrating the loss of free movement of people to and from Europe and then finding out a year or two later that there's no petrol, the supermarket shelves are half empty and heating bills are going through the roof.
Be careful what you wish for and celebrate I would say.
It's an interesting stat and discussion. I think from the point of view of the immediate future of the national team, it's a bad thing alright. We are probably going to get a lower standard of player coming through in the next few years, at the exact time when we can least afford it.
But I think that's a fairly narrow focus. We're tops in Europe for sending 16-year-olds abroad, and it's generally acknowledged that's a bad thing for player development afaik. And when you consider that most of those going abroad at that age fail and come back to Ireland, well then you've taken them out of two years of schooling for no benefit, and that's not a good thing. Plus the LoI would benefit from greater transfer fees if players stayed here longer, which is a good thing. Of course, the LoI isn't really set up to take over from English academies in terms of our own player development, and that's a legacy we have to bear for decades of mismanagement. We are way out of kilter with how player development works in the rest of Europe. Brexit should now force us to address this, which is a good thing.
On a tangential but related note - there is petrol, and there is stock for the shelves, but multi-billion pound companies have gotten used to paying Eastern European drivers minimum wage for long hours - as close to slavery as you can legally get really. (I've paid drivers and have had to top up salaries in some weeks because the 60 hours they worked means their salary was below minimum wage). Execs with huge salaries are now playing chicken with their supply lines as they don't want to set a precedent for paying local drivers an actual living wage. That's what that comes down to. And maybe if they pay drivers a proper wage, prices on the shelves or at the pump would go up slightly, but that seems a small price to pay for a more equitable society to me. And similarly, why should we keep taking 16-year-olds out of school, sending them to a foreign country where most will fail, just because a couple will make it and will improve our national team - is that really a win here?
In both cases, sometimes if you look beyond short-term pain, you can see the potential for greater long-term gain.
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