Parrott flying the coop fits into Hallgrimsson horizons

Heimir Hallgrimsson’s first target as Republic of Ireland manager will be to try and get a result against Euro 2024 runners-up England when the UEFA Nations League campaign gets underway in September.

The Iceland native has form for shocking the Three Lions from his time as joint-manager of his country back at Euro 2016.

But another aim for Hallgrimsson is for his Ireland players to look beyond England – not the national team of course but its league pyramid.

In his interview with RTÉ Sport’s Dave Kelly ahead of his unveiling last Thursday, he revealed a desire to see more Boys in Green players make the leap towards the continent at club level.

While there have always been a smattering of Irish players at clubs across Europe, the vast majority of exports end up in England and Scotland, although the impact of Brexit for those under 18 has seen an increase in youngsters heading to countries like Italy and Germany among others.

Hallgrimsson would certainly have been happy to see Ireland senior striker Troy Parrott sign for Dutch side AZ Alkmaar at the weekend.

Having endured mixed fortunes on loan from Tottenham in the English lower divisions, the Dubliner had thrived in the Netherlands on loan at Excelsior last season which led to numerous links with a stay at one of the more high-profile clubs, a fate that has now been confirmed.

Citing the example of Irish teenagers at German top flight side Hoffenheim, as highlighted by Dan McDonnell in the Irish Independent recently, former Dundalk striker David McMillan extolled the positives of broadening horizons on this week’s RTÉ Soccer Podcast.

“It was interesting to see their life over there and making that move (to Germany) with not being able to move to England easily at that age,” he said in reference to Matthew Moore and Finn Sherlock.

Listen to the RTÉ Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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“The set-up over there, the quality of the pitches and the training and the structures that they have in terms of wanting to see their academy players come through to the senior team, and the amount of staff that they have at academy level that we don’t have here, the number of staff in the academy teams in Hoffenheim was way above what we have in the whole of the country here.

“So I think that (moving to the continent) is beginning to happen naturally. I don’t know how much power Heimir will have to make that happen but I think that is going to start to happen with younger players and that’s no harm to see the amount of football they’re going to get at that young age.

“They were speaking about training five times a week, whereas here if you’re getting three evenings a week you’re doing well.

“So I think that environment for players will be brilliant and hopefully experience not just in English football but in other cultures will bring on our players in terms of their technical level, watching how the Spanish team play versus the English team, there’s no harm in having our players spread out across Europe.”

As for Parrott, the 22-year-old has been given the number nine shirt by AZ and a space in the pecking order opened up before his arrival after the two-time Eredivisie champions sold last season’s top scorer Vangelis Pavlidis to Benfica two weeks ago.

“It’s a brilliant move for him,” McMillan added of Parrott.

“He’s obviously had a good end-of-season with Excelsior. They were relegated so to stay in the top division in the Dutch league, AZ are obviously a big side there, so it’s a big move and hopefully it works out for him because if he’s confident and scoring goals there I’m sure he’ll feature heavily for Ireland.

“So it is good to see players outside the English market, I think, and playing abroad. It can only go to help the national team to have those experiences amongst the squad.”

Hallgrimsson also outlined a willingness to put together home-based squads made up of League of Ireland players to feature in international friendlies outside of FIFA-designated windows and former St Patrick’s Athletic and Shelbourne midfielder Conan Byrne discussed that on the podcast.

Watch Republic of Ireland v France in Women’s Euro 2025 qualifying on Tuesday from 5.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live commentary on 2fm’s Game On

Watch Republic of Ireland v Germany in the UEFA Women’s U19 Championship on Thursday from 11.50am on RTÉ News Channel and RTÉ Player

Watch Republic of Ireland v Netherlands in the UEFA Women’s U19 Championship on Sunday from 11.50am on RTÉ News Channel and RTÉ Player

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