MAYBE IT’S FITTING that while an experimental Republic of Ireland squad have spent the last week at a training camp in Spain, one of the most significant pieces of news regarding the international team emerged from Merseyside rather than Murcia.

Confirmation from Everton that Seamus Coleman’s time as a player with the Premier League club will come to an end later this month arrived on the eve of today’s friendly with Grenada in Real Murcia’s 31,000-capacity Estadio Nueva Condomina.

Coleman will say his goodbyes to Everton in their final home game of the campaign against Sunderland on Sunday.

There is no guarantee he will feature given David Moyes’ side remain in the hunt for a European place, even if the chances are now slim.

Coleman could move above the great Dixie Dean into 10th on the club’s all-time appearance list should he feature for the 434th time.

Football rarely offers the fairytale ending for anyone in the game, although it would be a fitting occasion for Coleman’s contributions over the last 17 years, many of them turbulent, all of them eventful, to be acknowledged by a community he has embraced.

More importantly, as referenced among the many glowing club tributes, Coleman’s playing career is not necessarily done as he will “now take this summer to decide his next move, with the defender having the option of taking up a coaching role at Everton or continuing his playing career with another club and the Republic of Ireland.”

Coleman turns 38 in October and will be a few months shy of his 40th birthday by the time Euro 2028 comes around.

That is, of course, the carrot dangling enticingly in front of him and everyone else in Irish football.

Heimir Hallgrímsson spoke in the aftermath of that utterly contemptible World Cup play-off losers’ friendly with North Macedonia about wanting Coleman to remain involved as a key player in the defence.

With the manager’s new contract ensuring he will be in charge for that tournament – provided Ireland don’t suffer the ignominy of all ignominies by somehow missing out – the logical assessment is that Hallgrímsson will be encouraging Coleman to prolong a career that has always been defined by a sense of duty and leadership.

Self-indulgence will not be the driving force behind Coleman’s decision. He stayed on with Everton for this campaign because he felt capable of contributing on the pitch.

Injury curtailed some of that ambition but so too did the form of Jake O’Brien.

Understandably, some viewed Coleman walking out at the Aviva Stadium with his children for that friendly on 31 March as a nod towards his thinking.

Clearly there is more for him to do over the coming weeks, and it may well be the case that Hallgrímsson confirms that he will be involved for the friendlies with Qatar in Dublin at the end of this month followed by the trip to face Canada in Montreal in early June.

The Ireland boss will announce the squad for those games after today’s friendly with Grenada. Some of the fringe players involved this week will hope they’ll have more opportunities this summer.

Others, like Adam Idah, will just be keen to play games after a season decimated by injury. The Cork native proved in the last campaign that he can be impactful off the bench and score important goals.

Lincoln City’s Jack Moylan is the latest product of the League of Ireland who approaches his 25th birthday with a season in the Championship in front of him.

A positive impression this week is important, of course, but it will be his ability to thrive there that will ultimately determine the likelihood of continued progress with Ireland.

Another playmaker in Andy Moran who is on board this week will testify to that.

Finding more creativity and options to control games from the middle should be the priority now given the stability at the back that is backboned by Premier League quality, and the ascension of Troy Parrott that has yet to be fully realised given the calibre of European clubs pursuing him this summer.

The FAI expect in the region of 800 travelling supporters for today’s game, only a couple of hundred shy of the official allocation for the World Cup play-off in Prague in March.

The dedication of some remains unwavering, even if the sense of occasion could not feel any further from Czechia.

Indeed, the game will not be broadcast on Virgin Media, RTÉ One or RTÉ Two, instead relegated to the RTÉ Player.

And yet it was only this week that Sinn Féin member of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, Cathy Bennett TD, called on RTÉ ‘to clarify their justification’ in sending 41 staff to work on their coverage of the play-off across TV, radio and online.

Of course, given that the game had an average of 78% of people watching TV in the country tuning in, that is easily justified as a national broadcaster fulfilling its duties.

Everything feels much more low-key for this friendly in the shadows, but the significance could yet be realised further down the line when Ireland and Hallgrímsson are under the spotlight.