Getting hammered by Finland, 3-0 down, 20 mins left.
Line text updates of the opening game against Finland here: https://www.uefa.com/under19/match/2...ic-of-ireland/
It's a strong looking front six, not sure about the defence
No live stream, but Germany are streaming their game later today, so our game against them will probably be streamed too
Getting hammered by Finland, 3-0 down, 20 mins left.
Doesn't sound like it's going great so far. This year group always had a really strong looking attack, but a very questionable defence if I remember correctly. Unfortunately the attack isn't firing today.
Finished 3-0 and need a miracle now to progress. Reality check for where some of these guys are.
Definitely. I've said it before but the greater publicity and awareness of our underage players in recent years, particularly through hype-merchants running online fan pages, leads to unrealistic notions of how good these emerging players actually are.
The 1999 to 2002 born groups were an exceptional run (by our standards) or producing multiple players each year who were capable of going on to play at a high level professionally in the game. The groups since then have been far more miss than hit, but they still get similar levels of hype to what the1999-2002 born players got at the same ages.
Players with irish caps and uncapped call ups with *s and lads who declared after underage football with ^s.
1998
Caoimhin Kelleher
Liam Scales
Jack Taylor
Connor Ronan*
Danny Mandriou*
1999
Dara O’Shea
Jayson Molumby
Mark Travers
Mikey Johnston^
2000
Will Smallbone
Michael Obafemi
Aaron Connolly
Finn Azaz
Lee O’Connor
Conor Coventry*
David Harrington*
2001
Nathan Collins
Jake O’Brien
Adam Idah
Jason Knight
Mark McGuinness
Kasey McAteer^
Luca Connell*
2002
Troy Parrott
Gavin Bazunu
Festy Ebosele
Tom Cannon
Andrew Omobamadele
2003
Andy Moran
Sinclair Armstrong
Bosun Lawal*
Josh Keeley*
2004
Evan Ferguson
James Abankwah*
2005
Rocco Vata*
Honestly I think 2004 is a down year in terms of depth but getting Evan Ferguson alone is huge. Maybe Alex Murphy makes it or Jack Moorhaus - and in terms of depth names - for every 10 or 15, you pull one like Jake O’Brien really defies expectations and with that year I don’t really see the quantity of those guys compared to other years - there’s maybe 10 guys where other years like 2000 or 2001 you could have had 30 - for every Jake O’Brien or Eiran Cashin, there was a tonne of guys like Rowan Roche or a Glen McAuley or whoever who you didn’t expect to pan out but if everything went right, they might.
But I think it gets better again in 2005. 2006 I think has good quality too (Kone Doherty, Romeo, Turley, Corey, McGrath - maybe Okosun, Grante) but less depth. The 19s squads have already featured a lot of 2007 kids (Melia, Orazi, Ochoa Moloney, McAndrew, Moore, Devaney, Gill, Cathal O’Sullivan), which probably speaks to the lack of quality depth in that year
You could pick a very competent Ireland senior team and subs from the 2000, 2001 and 2002 groups combined. An incredible run, 01 and 02 in particular were exceptional.
Sort of interesting that (at the moment) there's more capped forward players born this century(7) than midfield players(6). I think that indicates that there was more midfield players born before January 2000 who could play at international level than forward players.
If Vata makes his debut in these two games, it'll be the same amount for midfielders and forwards.
FWIW the game with the most players born after 1st January 2000 in the starting XI is the 3-0 win against Gibraltar in June 2023, with six.- Gavin Bazunu(20-02-2002), Will Smallbone(21-02-2000), Michael Obafemi(06-07-2000), Nathan Collins(30-04-2001), Jason Knight(13-02-2001), Evan Ferguson(19-10-2004)
Second game of the elite round against Slovenia kicking off at ten. They lost 2-0 to Germany in their opener, so need a win to stay in the competition
Line up announced, text updates available here
https://www.uefa.com/under19/match/2...d-vs-slovenia/
1-0 down after half an hour. Zero attempts on goal so far.
Dillon equalised with a penalty right on half time
Finished 1-1 and they're out, though it was always a long shot after the first game anyway.
final group game V Germany just kicked off
Live text here: https://www.uefa.com/under19/match/2...nd-vs-germany/
There's a stream on DFB Play here, you will need to register, but it's free to use the site: https://www.dfbplay.tv/
Finished 1-0 to Germany. Ireland finish bottom of the group with one point
The game was added to YouTube, Ireland actually played some good football. Orazi was really good when he came on, and set up Turley for a chance that came off the post.
Trent Kone Doherty only played the last few minutes, which seemed strange to me.
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