THREE YEARS AFTER bringing the curtain down on his playing career at the age of 34, Andy Reid is throughly enjoying the opportunity to ‘give back’ in a coaching capacity while working with some of Ireland’s most exciting prospects.
The former international midfielder, who earned 29 caps during a decade with Ireland, is six months into his role as Ireland U18 manager. Reid says he is relishing the step into coaching, while admitting that he is still new to the experience.
He was promoted to take over from Jim Crawford as U18 boss at the start of March. The former Shelbourne ace moved up to take over as assistant manager to Stephen Kenny with the U21s, with Reid and Crawford working closely together previously.
“I’m absolutely loving it and everyone’s been great with me,” Reid told FAI TV. “There’s a great group of underage managers and assistants all the way up to Stephen Kenny and Mick McCarthy, who have both been absolutely fantastic with me.
“Any time I’ve had any problems at all, you can pick up the phone. When we have our managers’ meetings, you’re able to have open discussions. So I’m learning all the time.
“In relative terms I’m new to the coaching game, so I’m having to improve, having to learn, having to analyse myself to find out what are my strengths, my weaknesses, to see where I can improve.
I feel that if I can improve as a coach, then that gives me a better opportunity to help the players improve as well.”
Alongside 18 others including Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Keith Andrews and Jim McGuinness, Reid is currently undertaking his Uefa Pro Licence this year. The course is 18 months in duration and is overseen by FAI Performance Director Ruud Dokter.
Reid’s U18 side have faced off against Austria, Norway, Sweden, and Turkey during his first six months in charge and the Dubliner is positive about the current state within Irish football, both at underage and senior level.
“The U21s are flying, Tom Mohan has done amazingly well with the U19s and then the U17s last summer gave a good account of themselves here [at the European Championships].
“There’s a hell of a lot to be excited about, not just with the underage football but with the senior squad as well.
“Listen, we want to play nice, good, flowing football but we need to give the kids an edge as well,” Reid continued. “You need to get the balance between developing and playing nice, real football.
“When you get to the U18s, U19s, U21s you have to get that winning mentality into you. Because when you do get into senior teams, it’s all about winning then.
“So we need to give them a little bit of both, but definitely the style of play is really good and it filters down from the senior squad. The senior squad are doing really well at the moment, we’ve seen that in the last few games.”
Reid has picked up a wealth of experience working under managers like McCarthy, Martin Jol at Tottenham, Alan Pardew with Charlton Athletic and Steve Bruce at Sunderland.
But the Crumlin native said he very much intends to be his own man coaching-wise, taking what he has learned from his playing career and adding it to his own ideas on the game.
“I would like to say I’m my own man. I think I’ve got my own coaching style. I’ve picked up a lot off managers as I’ve gone along — I’ve learned a lot of what I wouldn’t do as well. There’s certain things I’ve seen managers do that I’ve thought would never be for me.
“So I’ve learned loads from different managers, but I want to be my own coach, I want to be my own man, develop my own style, and I’m in the process of doing that.”
Reid recently oversaw his second camp with the Ireland U18s, playing Austria [a 4-0 defeat], Sweden [a 0-0 draw] and Norway [a 1-0] defeat. Despite not coming away with a win, Reid said it was important for Ireland to test themselves against top nations.
“It was a good camp. The opposition is very, very important for me in the games we play. With the greatest respect to some of the lesser nations, I don’t really want to be going and playing against them just to come away winning 4-0 or 5-0 every game.
“Because I don’t think we’ll learn too much from it about our players, and I don’t think the players will learn too much about themselves either. The level of competition [we face] is very, very important.”
Reid is in a good position to relate to many of his new players. The former midfielder represented Ireland from U15 all the way up to senior level, winning the Uefa U16 European Championships in 1998 under Brian Kerr.
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