Ireland can produce quality players and there is a tactical 'Plan B'

 

At a time when there’s much hand-wringing about the apparently woeful state of the nation’s senior soccer team - with particular criticism over the tactical approach favoured by recently departed Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni - Athlone District Schoolboy/Girl League chairman Padraig Quinn provides a different perspective.

 

The prevailing wisdom would have it that Irish football just does not have any quality players anymore and is incapable of producing quality players. That apparent consensus belies some of the extraordinary things that are going on in under-age Irish football.

Twelve young players from the Athlone District Schoolboy/Girl League recently embarked on the latest stage of their development as part of the FAI’s Emerging Talent Programme. Happily, those 14 and 15 year-old ADSL players were full of expectation, optimism and good intentions as they attended their induction meeting with their parents. They were part of a group of 30 players selected to the Midlands Regional Emerging Talent Programme, one of 12 such regional centres all over the country.

All of the players are also the product of the ADSL’s own Development Academies run under the auspices of the same FAI Emerging Talent Programme. Four of those ADSL players attended Irish U15 trials recently.

The Emerging Talent Programme was established in 2006. The Programme tasks each of the 32 Schoolboy Leagues in the country to organise local Development Academies. The ADSL has fully embraced the concept commencing in 2007 and now hosts Development Academies across six different age-groups from U9 to U15.

Each of these Academies work to a syllabus designed by the FAI intended to improve the technical and tactical ability of its young players. The 32 League Centres feed into the 12 Regional Centres which in turn feed into the various national under-age teams.

All of our national under-age teams, and unlike the national senior side, play a 4-3-3 system with an emphasis on retaining possession and passing the ball that could not be more different than the 'Plan A' relied on by the senior side.

Those under-age teams have enjoyed success out of all proportion to the nation’s size and playing resources. In the last 12 months all our under-age teams reached the elite phases of European competition. That is a feat which England, for instance, cannot match.

Ireland U21s beat Holland 3-0 last February and Italy 4-2 away the previous September. In their last campaign Ireland U19s were unbeaten in ten games and only missed out on a place at the finals after they held to a draw by the eventual overall winners Serbia in the Elite qualifying round.

Ireland U17s most recently finished top of their group in the first phase of qualifying. Last March, Ireland’s U16s won a UEFA Invitational Tournament beating Germany 1-0 and Belgium 2-0. Ireland’s U15s lost one game last season and beat Italian giants Juventus 3-0 last December and most recently beat Manchester United 1-0 in August. 

All of these young players on these teams are products of the FAI Emerging Talent Programme. That Programme started just seven years ago. The first of its graduates in Robbie Brady and Jeff Hendrick are the first to break into the national senior side.

Twenty-eight former ETP players, all born in 1996 (aged 17), have signed professional contracts with English or Scottish clubs representing the largest number of players born within a specific year to have moved abroad to professional clubs since the inception of the Programme and at a time when the number of Irish players going abroad is supposed to be in terminal decline.

There is then considerable good work being done to produce quality Irish players. The system is not perfect. There is scope for improvement and further development but there is a Plan B and it is working and is exciting. And we should not forget that.