LOST BENEATH THE generous shadow cast by John Delaney and the attendant controversies clinging to the FAI over the last couple of weeks: The Good News.
Hours before the senior side kicked off against Gibraltar in their bid to qualify for the European Championships, the Irish U19s reached theirs with a game to spare, thanks largely to a 3-1 win against Azerbaijan.
It’s a first appearance for Ireland at this level since 2011, when a side managed by Paul Doolin reached the semi-finals before losing to a Spanish side featuring Dani Carvajal, Alvaro Morata, Paco Alcacer, and Gerard Deulofeu.
“I know how difficult it is”, Doolin tells The42. “For them to go as far as they did – to win all six games – it’s very good. It really is.”
With the hosts qualifying automatically, 53 Uefa members scrap over just seven available places.
The qualifying campaign is cleft in two: an initial round-robin group phase winnows away 26 of the contenders, with the remaining teams bundled into seven groups of four, with the winners of each group qualifying for the finals.
Ireland topped their initial group phase with wins over Bosnia, the Faroe Islands and, most significantly, Holland.
That was followed by another 100% record in the elite phase. Having battered Romania 5-0 in the first game, Ireland qualified with a game to spare thanks to the coupling of the win against Azerbaijan with Russia’s being held to a draw by Romania.
With qualification assured, Ireland beat Russia 2-0 in the final game for good measure.
Having been the first side to join hosts Armenia in the tournament – kicking off on 14 July – Ireland finished up with a record that read 18 goals scored, three conceded.
The elite phase achievement was made all the more impressive given the fact that Ireland were depleted: Spurs’ Troy Parrott was injured, while Adam Idah (Norwich City), Conor Coventry (West Ham), and Lee O’Connor (Manchester United) were all involved with Stephen Kenny’s U21 squad.
Idah and Parrott were crucial in the initial round of games, scoring five of Ireland’s eight goals between them; in their absence in the elite round, Southampton pair Will Smallbone and Jonathan Afolabi (the latter is currently on trial with Millwall), Bohemian’s Ali Reghba and Jason Knight of Derby County all helped to fill the goalscoring gap.
Others have impressed: O’Connor is well-regarded at Manchester United, while midfielder Luca Connell has become a regular for Bolton Wanderers’ first-team in the Championship this season.
Doolin coached the Irish U19s until 2016, and having “hit the crossbar” in regard to qualifying in subsequent years, the job is now Tom Mohan’s.
Mohan is highly-rated: having played with Finn Harps and Derry City in the League of Ireland, he moved into coaching with a development officer gig with the FAI in Cavan. From there he began coaching the Irish U17s alongside Sean McCaffrey, and ascended to the manager’s position in 2012.
In 2016, he was announced as Doolin’s successor at U19 level. While success at different underage levels naturally accentuates improvements in players, Doolin can see some in Mohan himself.
“Tom himself has learned and got more experience”, says Doolin. “That’s probably experience, and it comes with maturing as a man too.
“This is looking in from the outside, but there were times when maybe he should have been tougher with players when he wasn’t.
He was a young coach and he maybe didn’t want to make decisions about leaving players out with poor discipline. There were squads I was handed and their discipline and attitude was poor, and that’s being honest with you. I’d have said it to Tom.
“At younger age groups, there has to be discipline in the players.
“Obviously the coaching side of things too: I’m sure he has improved there no end. In that environment you have to improve. If you don’t you find it difficult. Most of the countries you come up against are really strong.”
Underage tournaments usually provoke one question from the wider public: how many of these players are going to make it?
‘Making it’ is generally taken as playing for Ireland at senior international level, and given its a path littered with countless pitfalls, it’s exceptionally difficult to predict.
That said…
“It’s difficult”, says Doolin, “but it is definitely a good barometer because you are coming up against men.
“Like some of the blokes you’re coming up against…it’s really a strong age group.
“And you’re coming up against players who are really, really physically strong: they are men.
“It’s not like playing U15s and U16s. I remember playing against Germany once, who had Leroy Sane, Timo Werner, and Jonathan Tah – he wouldn’t get in your house if they tried to walk in the front door.”
Of Doolin’s 2011 squad, Jeff Hendrick. Matt Doherty and John Egan have become regular senior internationals, while Derrick Williams and goalkeeper Sean McDermott have found themselves on the fringes of the squad over the last 18 months. Shane Duffy and Robbie Brady, meanwhile, were part of the same crop but missed out on Doolin’s Euros squad.
While this summer will be Ireland’s first tournament appearance at U19 level in eight years, they have improved their attendance at the annual U17s Euros of late.
This summer will be their fourth in five years, although they have benefitted from the swelling of the tournament from eight to 16 teams in 2014.
While Doolin says that the expansion of the U17s tournament “can give you a little bit of a false reading sometimes”, it is also true to say that Ireland are in the midst of their most consistent run of tournament qualifications at underage level since the halcyon days of Kerr’s Kids.
Ireland are one of four nations to qualify for this tournament having also competed at the previous two U17 tournaments, the others being Norway, Spain, and Italy.
Should they make the cut this summer, this will be a third successive tournament for past U17 stars Kameron Ledwidge, Nathan Collins, Adam Idah, Tyreik Wright, Kian Clarke and Callum Thompson.
None of the other trio have squad members who were involved in both of those competitions. All of that augurs reasonably well for hopes that we may have a generation ready to take the mantle from Kerr’s, although that argument needs to be supported by silverware, or at least a final appearance.
Doolin is reserving judgement on a prediction until the draw is made – it is slated for the end of May – and while the intense Armenian heat will also cause Ireland some difficulties, he is optimistic.
“When you are looking at the current U19s, they can score goals: to score 10 at elite phase is very unlikely, it’s a very hard thing to do.
“They’ve beaten Holland in the first phase, who were knocked out when Spain scored against them in the 90th minute.
“Spain, Portugal, France, Italy… but if you were looking at our U19s, you’d have to say you wouldn’t fancy coming up against them.”
