The New Official Republic of Ireland Football Thread
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Never mind clubhouses and changing rooms, the biggest issue for me is the pitches. I was Fix Sec at my son's club in Dublin so experienced first hand how many matches get cancelled every season because pitches aren't playable. It's almost as though it never occurred to the FAI that it rains quite often in Ireland. It's actually rare for all the fixtures in any division to get played each season. And if they do it's only because they cram in a shit load of midweek games in May/June. And that's just matches, trying to fit in the training they need, while preserving pitches for league matches is a nightmare. A lot of clubs rely on council pitches that get called off at the first hint of rain, there are very very few 3G astros for a city this size and even when pitches are playable they're often in a woeful state. My son plays in the top division for his age and played maybe three matches all season on a really quality pitch (against SKBC, Belvo and Shamrock Rovers, of course!) There's really only a small handful of clubs with optimal facilities, in stark contrast to all the GAA clubs, who seem to have incredible resources. Likewise rugby clubs, who all seem to have at least one full sized 3G pitch (often two or more). Which is what boiled Damien Duff's piss and he was spot on, in my experience. It's all very well putting in place fancy development programs but they need to start by making sure that all the kids who want to play football get to play football, training at least twice a week and a match every single weekend. It's crazy how rarely that happens.
Yeah, we played in Bushy Park, and weren't allowed cut it up in the rain, so about half our home games were called off every season, which was pain in the arse when you make the trek to the pitch but I have to say I loved those evening summer fixtures in Bushy Park to finish the season.
We played in the top division so mostly the club facilities like changing rooms were ok but anything outside a handful of older clubs had little or no facilities.
There are GAA clubs around here who can barely field a team and have sensational facilities.
The evening summer fixtures are lovely. But a pain in the hole when you have two or three every week and they run right the way up to the start of the Junior Cert!
I can't remember caring, there were always loads of Terenure lasses playing tennis.
Yeah, but that's why they are pushing the switch to summer soccer, pitches will at least be somewhat playable. I was at some GAA ground in the arse end of nowhere last year and their facilities would put most LOI clubs to shame. It's actually ridiculous the setups that some of them have.
Probably what the FAI need to do is build regional centres of excellence like the GAA have in every county. At the minute it's left to the different leagues/teams to try and build up their own facilities, with little to no help from the FAI with regards to funding or grants.
Summer soccer is a no brainer. Of course, even in summer in Ireland you need your pitch to be on good, well drained land. That's another thing about the effect of GAA on soccer that doesn't get mentioned much. We all talk about the drain on talent but there's a land grab going on between the two sports and there's only ever been one winner.
This is why I don't understand why there can't be more community facilities that will cater for all sports that multiple clubs/teams can use. My local GAA and soccer club are landlocked in terms of space, we have nowhere to go, but numbers in both are going up every year with the increase in girls and boys teams. Teams can't train as often as they need and game time in hampered because it's impossible to get time to organise challenge games.
Seems like a good, honest manager.
The players aren’t really there for us, but let’s hope we can defy the odds a bit over the coming years.
Would be great if Ferguson kicked on.
The players aren’t really there for us, but let’s hope we can defy the odds a bit over the coming years.
Would be great if Ferguson kicked on.
A very strange appointment but at least it's done now, a ludicrously long process time to get it done though.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group talk about changing room facilities as much as in Ireland.
Who cares? A changing room and club house aren’t making a footballer. The playable pitches as mentioned above are an issue but changing rooms absolutely aren’t.
I never saw a single club house or changing room my whole youth career playing in Canada and it did us no harm at all. My city alone has 5 players who just made it to the Copa semis and even more were at the last World Cup. Some of them now playing in Serie A, La Liga and Ligue 1 and other top European leagues.
Who cares? A changing room and club house aren’t making a footballer. The playable pitches as mentioned above are an issue but changing rooms absolutely aren’t.
I never saw a single club house or changing room my whole youth career playing in Canada and it did us no harm at all. My city alone has 5 players who just made it to the Copa semis and even more were at the last World Cup. Some of them now playing in Serie A, La Liga and Ligue 1 and other top European leagues.
I'd agree. Even as an adult I don't know how many times I've got ready out of the car or on the side of a road. Even as kids we didn't give a shit about the quality of the pitches either, we just went and played.
But now with all the safeguarding standards etc it seems those things are required for clubs to actually be able to accommodate underage players. It just seems to be the way it is, I only became aware of it recently when a club near me couldn't run their usual summer academy because they didn't have proper changing rooms or toilets.
Where did you quote me saying that from? I've never said that
Edit: Oh it's from the tweet. I may be fat but I'd never be called something as common as Dave.
It's about facilities in general. There is a reason people are bringing their kids to GAA and Rugby over football. Changing rooms are also symbolic, nobody with shit changing facilities has a state-of-the-art training facility.
The quality of pitches also matters hugely. Do you think exclusively muddy grassless fields help with technique? I can still remember all the good pitches I played on because it was a pleasure to do so. It was more enjoyable and easier to be expressive, which is the area of football even our successful teams struggled at.
As for safeguarding, with our history of abuse, I don't think we should be whining about safeguarding.
Speaking of which, did anybody watch Girls in Green?
https://www.rte.ie/player/movie/rt-investigates-girls-in-green/534326312240
I'm not whining about safeguarding, I'm just saying that's just the way it is now. So, if you have a club that doesn't have those basic facilities, from what I've been told they're not allowed to have any underage teams. I could be wrong, as I only know of one example.
Ideally every club would be able to avail of grants and assistance to be able to provide those basic facilities, but it's up to the clubs themselves to apply for the funding, to go out and raise all the money to do it. In a lot of cases the people involved just don't have the time or the know how to jump through all the hoops and to navigate all the paperwork involved. There's little to no assistance from the FAI.
This idea that kids are playing on muddy grassless fields is not entirely accurate, most clubs do their best to look after their pitches and from my experience as soon as there's any amount of rain at all, games are called off. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've had to wear long studs for soft ground in the last 10 to 15 years or had a team play on a very wet pitch. Vast majority of clubs have decent pitches with relatively good surfaces, it might be a bit bumpy and the grass might be too long, but players really just have to learn to deal with it.
And in all fairness, look at the state of some of the pitches at the Euros, cutting up all over the place and people here seem to expect a local club with very little resources to provide a perfect playing surface. It's never going to happen.
I misunderstood re safeguarding.
Grant access in this country needs to be ripped asunder. You are right, only a select few seem to be able to avail of them. It's the same with Arts Grants, and to be honest it seems they mostly go to people who don't really need them. Arts grants are akin to a middle-class subsidy here. That's a whole other rant though.
On pitches, some are muddy and uneven and I played on more than one pitch where we had to clear the horseshit. I'm not talking about top-level, but some are quite bad. And even if they have improved they can always be better. That's why even top-level footballers complain that their facilities are not amazing, it does matter.
Yeah, this is spot on. It’s also about the message it sends to the kids. My young fella recently started playing rugby as well as football. When he’s playing football he’s putting his kit on on the side of the pitch, often in the rain. When he plays rugby he’s walking into a heated changing room and seeing a shirt with his number on it hanging up waiting for him. That was a real eye opener for him. He may have to choose a sport soon (seeing as rugby, soccer and GAA are all played on Saturday - another madness in all of this!) and stuff like that will influence his decision.
We've all played on shit pitches, massive holes, grass almost a foot long, goal mouths where the centre is about 10 ft to the cross bar. I can remember one game in particular where the pitch was frozen solid, but we didn't care we just wanted to play football.
I think overall there's been a huge improvement, most clubs realise to attract and retain players and coaches you need to have decent facilities.
It matters, our club secretary always says the players come first, we have excellent facilities now, compared to when I first was first playing at u12. It's mostly all been down to his hard work. He always makes sure there's kits for every team, it's a simple thing but he knows young kids get a buzz out of putting on a proper jersey. It makes them feel like they are part of a team.
And in fairness to him, he also knows how to navigate the political aspects of the grants system, how to apply to get the most you need etc. Even this last year he knew quite well, he had to wait until the local elections were coming up to put in applications for different things. Will know in a month or so if we'll get a grant to replace our 3g pitch with a newer version, but we'll still be about at least 100-150k short. That's money we'll have to go out and raise ourselves.
No way doctor speak good.
Gwan the wimmin!
Jake O Brien going to Everton for 20M apparently
Lest we forget.
I can’t wait to see this cinematic portrayal of a much underreported and under-investigated event in modern Irish history.
I feel very confident that Coogan will need to be told by the director, repeatedly, to take at least 20% off his performance.
In other news...was anyone aware of this?
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soc...my-in-ireland/
How Atlético Madrid saw a ‘gap in the market’ and set up an academy in Ireland
Spanish giants are looking to unearth gifted young Irish footballers after Brexit closed off traditional pathway to British clubs
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soc...my-in-ireland/
How Atlético Madrid saw a ‘gap in the market’ and set up an academy in Ireland
Spanish giants are looking to unearth gifted young Irish footballers after Brexit closed off traditional pathway to British clubs
The Spanish football gospel has spread to Ireland. Last year, Atlético Madrid, one of Spain’s aristocrats in club football, established a beachhead in the country, setting up an official academy in Dublin. Formally entitled Atlético de Madrid Academy Dublin, it’s the club’s fifth across the world, but its first in Europe. It’s inspired by Atlético’s legendary success and a market opportunity to unearth gifted young Irish footballers. In the last decade, Atlético have won two La Liga titles and reached two Champions League finals. Their squad is stocked with five World Cup winners – including Antoine Griezmann, Rodrigo De Paul and Nahuel Molina – and Álvaro Morata, Spain’s winning Euro 2024 captain (who will join AC Milan later in the summer). Its most iconic player, Fernando Torres, scored Spain’s winner against Germany in the Euro 2008 final.
Atlético have loaned a full-time coach to Atlético Academy Dublin. All their academy coaches are trained by the Madrid-based club so players learn how to play the Atlético way. Players are also schooled in Atlético’s values, including teamwork, discipline and respect towards referees, guidelines which extend to onlooking parents, who are only permitted to voice encouragement during matches. Already almost 200 boys and girls have joined the academy. At the moment, Atlético’s academy players train at Abbotstown and Phoenix Park, but this is a temporary arrangement. The academy is looking for a site around Dublin’s hinterland to establish a permanent base with room to grow the academy.
“The lack of appropriate facilities, particularly during winter months, is a significant issue. There has been a comprehensive and enduring failure to provide enough proper facilities for children who want to play soccer in Ireland. We lag so far behind other footballing nations,” says Murrough McMahon, a lawyer and spokesperson for the academy. As the Atlético academy expands, in addition to having underage teams competing in the Dublin & District Schoolboys’/Girls’ League, its ambition is to have elite teams competing in the League of Ireland. The academy also runs regular football clinics as well as Easter and summer camps and is rolling out coaching clinics to schools.
“It’s an untapped market here in Ireland for a club like Atlético Madrid,” says McMahon. “We’ve two million people in the Greater Dublin Area. According to the Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Study 2022, soccer is the most popular community sport for boys in both primary (56 per cent) and post-primary schools (41 per cent). Participation of girls in soccer has also recently exploded due to the popularity and success of the senior women’s international team, which is fantastic to see, but it has exacerbated the demand for proper facilities. “The talent is here, but for years no European club would touch Ireland. What happened is that from 15 or 16, kids would go to academies in England, and they’d be scouted there if they were any good by European clubs. Ireland was never perceived as a territory worth exploring from a scouting perspective.”
Dubliner Johnny Carey, who captained Manchester United to a famous FA Cup win in 1948, was lured to Old Trafford as a teenager in the 1930s. After the second World War, talented youths like Liam Whelan, John Giles and Eamon Dunphy followed in his path. Later, other English clubs got in on the act. Liam Brady, for example, joined Arsenal in 1971 as a 15-year-old. Robbie Keane was snapped up by Wolves in 1996 aged 15. Evan Ferguson moved to Brighton as a 16-year-old. None of those deals could happen today. “There is a gap in the market,” says McMahon. “There has been an unintended consequence to Brexit. It has impacted young Irish players going to the UK. Players in the EU can no longer transfer to England until they’re 18, but Irish players – who are, of course, in the European Union – can still move to European clubs at 16.
“Ireland, though, isn’t on the radar of other European clubs. A few years ago, for example, Irish academy coaches went out to Juventus, and a Juventus executive told them they never had anyone scout in Ireland. The furthest they got to was England because they thought all the promising Irish players would be playing in England. They only ever went to England to scout. That’s changed now because of Brexit.”
From January 2021, according to Brexit legislation, English football clubs could no longer sign under-18 footballers from overseas. The law was designed to limit foreign players joining English clubs. It led to a flurry of transfer activity the year beforehand, as Premier League clubs were conscious that a drawbridge was about to be pulled up.
Manchester United, for instance, swooped for six overseas players aged 16 to 18 in the summer of 2020; the club admitted upcoming Brexit regulations informed its strategy. One of those teenage players was Alejandro Garnacho, who they prized away from Atlético. Aston Villa was another Premier League club which purposefully scouted players aged 16. It signed St Patrick’s Athletic defender Aaron O’Reilly in the summer of 2020 a few days after his 16th birthday. The profile of Ireland’s under-17 squad is changing dramatically as a result. Last year, for example, only two of the 20 footballers in the Irish squad to play in the European Under-17 Championship finals in Hungary were attached to English clubs: Hull City’s Stanley Ashbee, whose Irish ancestors come from Co Limerick, and Crystal Palace’s Jake Grante, whose relatives hail from Kilkee, Co Clare. The other 18 footballers played with Irish clubs.
This season a trend is developing. Two players from the Ireland squad who played European Under-17 Championship qualifiers in March are signed with clubs in Europe: Matthew Moore at Hoffenheim in Germany and Aarón Ochoa at Malaga in Spain. Most recently, Shelbourne defender Finn Sherlock, who turned 16 in July, also joined Hoffenheim.
Atlético has an interesting historical connection with Ireland: the first stadium it owned, which it used between 1912 until 1923, was Campo de O’Donnell (O’Donnell Stadium). The stadium hosted Spain’s first international football match played in Madrid, a 3-1 victory over Portugal in 1921. It was located close to Retiro park in the heart of Madrid on O’Donnell Street, which takes its name from Leopoldo O’Donnell, a notable military general and politician in Spain during the nineteenth century of Irish origin. Now it looks like more young Irish immigrants – some of the country’s most talented footballers – might be following in the footsteps of the O’Donnell family south towards Madrid. “When we get set up with our own ground, any budding footballer in Ireland will be dying to get into our academy,” says McMahon, “because of the prospect that if we see someone interesting, we’ll be able to get them straight over to Atlético for a trial.”
Why is Spanish football coaching so good?
It feels sometimes like Spain is ground zero when it comes to football. A thrilling Spain team just became the first country to win the European Championship four times. A couple of months ago, Real Madrid won its 15th European Cup, an extraordinary dominance in the club game. (AC Milan is next on the list with seven titles.) The top three coaches in the English Premier League come from Spain: Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola, Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta and Unai Emery at Aston Villa.
Xabi Alonso graduated with his Uefa coaching licence in 2019 (in a class that included Xavi Hernández and Raúl, who are both carving significant coaching careers). Alonso devised a deft trajectory for his coaching career, beginning at Real Madrid’s youth academy, then moving on to to coach Real Sociedad’s reserve team before conquering Germany with Bayer Leverkusen, the only champions in Bundesliga history to go undefeated all season domestically.
There is a reason why Spain is so good at nurturing intelligent football coaches. It invests in coaching. In 2017, for example, 15,459 coaches in Spain held Uefa’s two top coaching qualifications, compared with only 2,083 coaches in England. Ireland has only 10 full-time staff spread across 24 academies. In contrast, Croatia with a similar sized population has 190 full-time academy staff across 10 clubs. The strategy has paid dividends for Spain. In addition to its Euro 2024 success, it’s the only footballing nation to win three major international tournaments consecutively: Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012. These successes were built on coaching excellence at underage level. Spain, for example, has won the European Under-17 Championship nine times since its inauguration in 1980, more than any other country.
Atlético have loaned a full-time coach to Atlético Academy Dublin. All their academy coaches are trained by the Madrid-based club so players learn how to play the Atlético way. Players are also schooled in Atlético’s values, including teamwork, discipline and respect towards referees, guidelines which extend to onlooking parents, who are only permitted to voice encouragement during matches. Already almost 200 boys and girls have joined the academy. At the moment, Atlético’s academy players train at Abbotstown and Phoenix Park, but this is a temporary arrangement. The academy is looking for a site around Dublin’s hinterland to establish a permanent base with room to grow the academy.
“The lack of appropriate facilities, particularly during winter months, is a significant issue. There has been a comprehensive and enduring failure to provide enough proper facilities for children who want to play soccer in Ireland. We lag so far behind other footballing nations,” says Murrough McMahon, a lawyer and spokesperson for the academy. As the Atlético academy expands, in addition to having underage teams competing in the Dublin & District Schoolboys’/Girls’ League, its ambition is to have elite teams competing in the League of Ireland. The academy also runs regular football clinics as well as Easter and summer camps and is rolling out coaching clinics to schools.
“It’s an untapped market here in Ireland for a club like Atlético Madrid,” says McMahon. “We’ve two million people in the Greater Dublin Area. According to the Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Study 2022, soccer is the most popular community sport for boys in both primary (56 per cent) and post-primary schools (41 per cent). Participation of girls in soccer has also recently exploded due to the popularity and success of the senior women’s international team, which is fantastic to see, but it has exacerbated the demand for proper facilities. “The talent is here, but for years no European club would touch Ireland. What happened is that from 15 or 16, kids would go to academies in England, and they’d be scouted there if they were any good by European clubs. Ireland was never perceived as a territory worth exploring from a scouting perspective.”
Dubliner Johnny Carey, who captained Manchester United to a famous FA Cup win in 1948, was lured to Old Trafford as a teenager in the 1930s. After the second World War, talented youths like Liam Whelan, John Giles and Eamon Dunphy followed in his path. Later, other English clubs got in on the act. Liam Brady, for example, joined Arsenal in 1971 as a 15-year-old. Robbie Keane was snapped up by Wolves in 1996 aged 15. Evan Ferguson moved to Brighton as a 16-year-old. None of those deals could happen today. “There is a gap in the market,” says McMahon. “There has been an unintended consequence to Brexit. It has impacted young Irish players going to the UK. Players in the EU can no longer transfer to England until they’re 18, but Irish players – who are, of course, in the European Union – can still move to European clubs at 16.
“Ireland, though, isn’t on the radar of other European clubs. A few years ago, for example, Irish academy coaches went out to Juventus, and a Juventus executive told them they never had anyone scout in Ireland. The furthest they got to was England because they thought all the promising Irish players would be playing in England. They only ever went to England to scout. That’s changed now because of Brexit.”
From January 2021, according to Brexit legislation, English football clubs could no longer sign under-18 footballers from overseas. The law was designed to limit foreign players joining English clubs. It led to a flurry of transfer activity the year beforehand, as Premier League clubs were conscious that a drawbridge was about to be pulled up.
Manchester United, for instance, swooped for six overseas players aged 16 to 18 in the summer of 2020; the club admitted upcoming Brexit regulations informed its strategy. One of those teenage players was Alejandro Garnacho, who they prized away from Atlético. Aston Villa was another Premier League club which purposefully scouted players aged 16. It signed St Patrick’s Athletic defender Aaron O’Reilly in the summer of 2020 a few days after his 16th birthday. The profile of Ireland’s under-17 squad is changing dramatically as a result. Last year, for example, only two of the 20 footballers in the Irish squad to play in the European Under-17 Championship finals in Hungary were attached to English clubs: Hull City’s Stanley Ashbee, whose Irish ancestors come from Co Limerick, and Crystal Palace’s Jake Grante, whose relatives hail from Kilkee, Co Clare. The other 18 footballers played with Irish clubs.
This season a trend is developing. Two players from the Ireland squad who played European Under-17 Championship qualifiers in March are signed with clubs in Europe: Matthew Moore at Hoffenheim in Germany and Aarón Ochoa at Malaga in Spain. Most recently, Shelbourne defender Finn Sherlock, who turned 16 in July, also joined Hoffenheim.
Atlético has an interesting historical connection with Ireland: the first stadium it owned, which it used between 1912 until 1923, was Campo de O’Donnell (O’Donnell Stadium). The stadium hosted Spain’s first international football match played in Madrid, a 3-1 victory over Portugal in 1921. It was located close to Retiro park in the heart of Madrid on O’Donnell Street, which takes its name from Leopoldo O’Donnell, a notable military general and politician in Spain during the nineteenth century of Irish origin. Now it looks like more young Irish immigrants – some of the country’s most talented footballers – might be following in the footsteps of the O’Donnell family south towards Madrid. “When we get set up with our own ground, any budding footballer in Ireland will be dying to get into our academy,” says McMahon, “because of the prospect that if we see someone interesting, we’ll be able to get them straight over to Atlético for a trial.”
Why is Spanish football coaching so good?
It feels sometimes like Spain is ground zero when it comes to football. A thrilling Spain team just became the first country to win the European Championship four times. A couple of months ago, Real Madrid won its 15th European Cup, an extraordinary dominance in the club game. (AC Milan is next on the list with seven titles.) The top three coaches in the English Premier League come from Spain: Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola, Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta and Unai Emery at Aston Villa.
Xabi Alonso graduated with his Uefa coaching licence in 2019 (in a class that included Xavi Hernández and Raúl, who are both carving significant coaching careers). Alonso devised a deft trajectory for his coaching career, beginning at Real Madrid’s youth academy, then moving on to to coach Real Sociedad’s reserve team before conquering Germany with Bayer Leverkusen, the only champions in Bundesliga history to go undefeated all season domestically.
There is a reason why Spain is so good at nurturing intelligent football coaches. It invests in coaching. In 2017, for example, 15,459 coaches in Spain held Uefa’s two top coaching qualifications, compared with only 2,083 coaches in England. Ireland has only 10 full-time staff spread across 24 academies. In contrast, Croatia with a similar sized population has 190 full-time academy staff across 10 clubs. The strategy has paid dividends for Spain. In addition to its Euro 2024 success, it’s the only footballing nation to win three major international tournaments consecutively: Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012. These successes were built on coaching excellence at underage level. Spain, for example, has won the European Under-17 Championship nine times since its inauguration in 1980, more than any other country.
Sounds brilliant. The poxy government aren't gonna do it.
Yes. There’s a club in Phoenix Park that used to be called Polish Eagles, that was mainly made up of kids of Polish immigrants. A few years ago they changed their name to FC Eagles, starting playing in an Atletico kit and their coaches WhatsApp picture changed to a selfie of him and Fernando Torres. Plus they started fielding a few Spanish players. Turns out they had got some backing from Atletico Madrid. The article mentions Phoenix Park so must be part of the same initiative. They’ve been in the same division as my son’s team for the last few seasons. They aren’t very good. Beat them easily every season, home and away.
From little acorns...(we really need a praying smilie)
As someone with a foot in both camps, I really hope the Ireland team give England a good hard spanking, so the English FA have to actually look and find a decent Manager rather than repeat the same interim becomes full time manager spiel they did with Southgate.
Some decent moves for the Irish this summer. Good to see he and O’Shea back in the Premier League. Along with Szmodics and Jake O’Brien, Smallbone and Manning. Collins needs to find a bit of consistency this year. We need as many players at that level as possible. Hopefully Ferguson gets fit this season and kicks on.
The Celtic move should be good for Idah and Parrott has needed a permanent home for a while. Browne going to Sunderland should be a positive if they don’t become a basket case again. Cannon hopefully getting a good Championship move would be positive, too, as he won’t play at Leicester. Bristol City looks a good step up for Sinclair Armstrong.
One of my sons classmates (age 9) in part of their academy in Dublin. He got to play in a tournament in Spain. By all accounts it’s a great setup
It's good to see, but how many will be relegated and moving again the season after?
Hopefully, it can prioritise cultivating Irish talent qua cultivating Irish talent, rather than Atleti's interest.
In other words, they do not lose interest when they realise we are shite.
We can't rely in the FAI.
Quite a few probably. That’s going to be the way of it for us. With the exception of Ferguson, none of these guys will likely ever be good enough to hold down a spot at really top PL clubs, so the rest are just trying to establish themselves in the middle tier.
We could have around 10 players playing semi regularly in the PL this season.
3 at Southhampton, 3 at Ipswich, 2 at Everton. Plus Collins and Ferguson.