Liam Brady: Young English players leaving Irish counterparts in their wake

Although England had the reality check of losing at home to the Netherlands straight after a comeback win away to Germany, I must say I was very impressed with the crop of really fine young players they put on display over the course of the two friendlies.

Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Danny Rose, Ross Barkley, John Stones, even Daniel Sturridge up to a point — all these players have emerged in the last two or three years and they are all of a pretty high quality.

Sadly, the contrast with the Irish situation is acute. We haven’t got anybody of that calibre, between the ages of 18 and 22, who we can get really excited about.

Why is that? I would argue it’s because the academy system in England, something Howard Wilkinson initiated more than 10 years go, has been busy developing young boys from eight and nine upwards — and, as we can see in the senior team, that work is now beginning to bear fruit.

In Ireland, we don’t have anything like that. Instead, we rely on good schoolboy clubs but they don’t always play the kind of football that would develop a technical young player. So by the time our lads are going to England, at 15 or 16, they’re playing catch-up.

When you go back 20 or 25 years, to the era which produced the last great crop of young Irish talent — the likes of Robbie Keane, Damien Duff and Richard Dunne — the environment was very different. Those boys were out on the street playing football all the time, with the result Keane and Duff were as good technically as any player you’ll find in one of today’s academies.

But where are their successors now? That’s what worries me. And what are the FAI doing about it?

It’s no good looking at the best players when they’re already 13 or 14. We’ve got to develop a system that identifies them when they’re eight and nine, so they can be coached and improved technically from that point on. Currently, they’re only training maybe twice a week with their schoolboy clubs and, the rest of the time, probably not practising like they should be.

Meanwhile, England are showing signs of reaping the benefits of an enlightened and far-sighted approach to developing young talent — to the extent, indeed, that I would say they have a decent chance at the upcoming Euros of at least going close to winning a tournament for the first time since 1966.

Admittedly, that’s in part because the opposition in Europe is not currently of the highest standard, but England are also entitled to feel optimistic because of those exciting young players the FA’s development work has brought through.