Courtesy: FAI


Squad for historic Futsal match announced

Thursday, 13 November 2008

The squad to take part in the Republic of Ireland’s first ever senior Futsal international match was announced today. The Ireland Futsal team will travel to Budapest later this month for two matches against Hungary. Many of the players have sampled international Futsal at U21 level as recently as last April when the U21s competed in the UEFA U21 Futsal Championship qualifying tournament.

Manager Derek O’Neill has introduced two new players to the squad in the form of Shelbourne’s Gary McCabe and Kildare’s Thomas Morgan.

Said O’Neill “Gary played in some friendly matches for the U21 Development squad in Portugal against Benfica and Sporting Lisbon and did very well, while Thomas is an experienced underage football international who captained the Ireland U20s to 3rd place in the U20 World Cup in Malaysia during Brian Kerr’s reign . Thomas has played Futsal before and knows what the game is about so his experience will be a good influence on some of the young players in the squad.”

However, O’Neill recognises that there’s a difficult task ahead in Hungary:
“Hungary has had a National Futsal League in place for many years now with their entire National team playing professionally. Ireland has only recently embraced the game and has a short National League season mainly featuring U21eircom League of Ireland players. However, I’m happy to start mainly with the youngsters and bring them through this learning curve with the expectation that the team being built will become more competitive in the near future. It’s a great opportunity for these players”.

The squad is:
Keith Gallagher (Bluebell United)
John Perkins (FAI Development)
Lloyd Massey (Shamrock Rovers)
Mark Langtry (Shamrock Rovers)
Dane Massey (Bray Wanderers)
Alan Lynch (Longford Town)
Philip McDonagh (Bohemians)
Ian Byrne (Shelbourne)
Gary McCabe (Shelbourne)
Thomas Morgan (Kildare County)
Neil Harkin (Institute FC)
Craig Duggan (Cork City)
Brendan Dawson (Shelbourne)
Shane O’Neill (Bray Wanderers)

Standby players:
Ronan McGann (Monaghan United)
Chris Allen (Dublin University)




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com