Read this yesterday in the Examiner: Why birthdays are one of the big problems affecting Irish soccer
Basically, that players born in the last quarter of the year (October-December) are the least likely to get international caps. However, while I think there is a correlation between the month of your birth and your chances of playing at international level, there's a few flaws in their argument
- The use of summer soccer to assign a "quarter" to Irish-born players, and a different quarter to UK-born players ignores that the summer season in Ireland started in 2003, so players from before that year would have played the same season as UK-born players.
- They only use the squad from the play offs to back up the point - which is a tiny sample size
Bearing that in mind, I did some research in the same area, based around the players who have been capped by Martin O'Neill. You can read the results here: Are Birthdays Really Important?
There's some slightly different conclusions to what was reached in the Examiner's article. Basically, there needs to be more research done.
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