The Republic of Ireland's Secret Golden Generation 

Irish Guy, this video is for you

As a fan of Preston North End, who've done 99% of their international recruitment from Ireland in the past 10 years, this is great news

I would definitely have to disagree that Gaelic games are "middle class", more rural yes but that's a different thing. Also the participation numbers are skewed because of Dublin having such a big population, outside of the capital Gaelic football and hurling are far more popular than soccer. Every tiny village in Ireland has a GAA club, they don't all have soccer clubs. Also the current success of our rugby team and the world class underage set up the IRFU have in place mean rugby union is fast catching up as well. Good video all the same, interesting perspective.

I support Shamrock Rovers, we have the best youth facilities of any LOI club and its basically a sports club with a bar and a few astro pitches. The league has been criminally underfunded for decades and doesn't look like changing any time soon. Great video as always!

Fantastic video as always but one small complaint: GAA is NOT a middle class game (that would be rugby). GAA is as working class as soccer, but GAA being more popular in rural areas/towns/villages and soccer being more popular in more urban towns/cities. While soccer might have the statistical participation numbers, the heart beat of every village and town in rural Ireland is its local GAA club. Not trying to cause divide either, Love all sports and Irish kids being multi-sport athletes should be used to Ireland’s advantage

The lack of funding for soccer in Ireland is largely down to the government not trusting the FAI after how they’ve wasted money over the years and got into serious debt because of one greedy bastard

Well done again Alfie on another great in-depth video. As an Irishman, it is so frustrating with the domestic situation be it from government or the FAI not caring about grassroots and LOI football. Im a season-ticket holder with Shamrock Rovers and can really see the potential there, but it all seems to be working against us (and the rest of the league). As for the national team, we are in a phase of transition as after even Egan or Duffy who just turned into their 30s, there are almost no players between 23-28 in the squad meaning we are depending on the younger players too soon. In 5 or 10 years time we may look stronger but of course no one really knows. I have faith in Stephen Kenny to help the young players come through, and hope he can stay in charge to see it come. As for a United Ireland league, while it would likely appeal more generally and there have been discussions from different backers, the main issues seem to be financial packages and the loss of European spots so until it’s done politically i wouldnt expect it to arrive any sooner than that.

0:17 Ireland being literally one spot below Ivory Coast is so funny to me

Another really promising midfielder is Crystal Palace’s Killian Phillips. He’s 20 years old and currently on loan at Shrewsbury. He’s also got like 30 appearances for Drogheda. Hasn’t played for Palace in the PL yet, but he looked great in preseason and seems to be doing well on loan. Could be one for the future.

Festy Ebosele is another player with huge potential at right back. Could definitely see him thriving if we play a 3

Not Irish in anyway but thise video was incredible. The research is cohesive and the narrative is easy to invest in. Good combo of your video essays and the usual Sevens.

Surprised Eiran Cashin didn't get mentioned at all, but I suppose that says something about how good the crop of young Irish Center Backs is right now.

Leaving out the fact that I'm Irish, this is an exceptionally well researched video. What a great job!! The future does look good for us. Having played football in Dublin at the highest level growing up, the amount of players who just never got a chance and stopped playing is a sad indictment on the FAI. The opportunity is there for us to be a force.

The studying of Irish politics and other sports really shows the work you put into these. Great Video

Similar story with Norway. We were good in the 90's, rubbish for the past 20 years with a declining league. The darkest periode we concede a home goal against San Marino, lost to Moldova. Were ranked 87 at the FIFA ranking, 2 spots below Faroe Islands. Yes, that was truly embarrassing. The league have improved a lot lately, with the best Norwegian teams being able to somewhat compete in Europe without being crushed. A lot of focus on develop talents. Two talisman in Haaland and Ødegaard. A new golden generation on its way and hopefully qualifying for our first major competition since 2000. 😅

Danny McNamara from Millwall deserves a mention at right back. He's been fantastic for us over the last couple of years as we push for promotion to the prem

Alfie, long time Irish listener (as you know) and this is an excellent video. The treatment of Irish football here has for decades been a disgrace, and our long term approach to it has been to let English clubs develop our players, and this is a better expose than almost any Irish outlet has produced in that time (depressing). Also, GAA is not a middle class sport (small complaint) and you are dead right to not get into Irish unification (given your accent). Brilliant as always.

Great video as always, Alfie! I would love a video of a similar style about Norway, seeing as we haven't qualified for a tournament since 2000, but now have an incredibly talented squad coming up with two of the best players in the world

As an Irish man you done this video justice it's beautiful to see our little island been blessed with this generation of talented youth

Brilliant stuff as always, I'm a Sligo Rovers fan and I am very optimistic about the future of the LOI attendances are up for the league as a whole we've sold out most home games recently. Interest in the league is far higher than ever than I can remember. Young players who as you said would have in the past gone to England at 15 or 16 are staying in the league for longer. If we can get a more concerted effort from the FAI LOI and the Govt. I am really exited for what the future could be like

The disparaging way Alfie said "Scotland" - reminding everyone that if you're worse than Scotland you really are the pits...

Alfie has just shown some hopes for the Irish Guy. You love to see it.

Great video. As a Celtic and Ireland fan from the north, it’s shocking the lack of funding and resources pumped into football in Ireland both north and south. An all Ireland team may help that but before it does we need young players and new management and staff and more hunger in the team

It's not often I hear a British person say Taoiseach, let alone pronounce it perfectly. Fair play!

Listen to your videos every day in the car to uni, big congrats on 500k, well deserved and thank you for your dedication and hundreds of hours of content Alfie. Rarely comment video ideas but would love to see a video on Celtic and how dramatically Ange Postecoglou has turned the club back around to unrivalled dominance in Scotland since the disastrous season where Celtic lost out on the last of ten league titles in a row. Think it would be an interesting video!

As a homesick irishman living in spain this has made up for alfie not posting for 3 days

Ireland is one of my favourite nations daily and ever in this world and other planets and I fully hope that their national team,with their up and coming talents who are coming through their ranks,would get the team up and going strongly,good friends!!!LONG LIVE IRELAND!!!🇮🇪

Greetings from county Kerry! Great video today, hope to see the unified Ireland video soon. Cheers!

Good video! As an Ireland fan, it's especially pleasing to see the hugely improved performance of the youth teams. We had excellent youth teams in the late 90s under Brian Kerr but subsequently, the teams had very little success for years. Recently though, the U21s have done well and were unlucky not to qualify for the Euros. The U19s reached the semi-finals of the Euros in 2019. The U17s were in the finals of the Euros 3 times in a row recently too. Very encouraging!

This channel is great. Clear precise narration and information that is easily digestible as a video or just as audio.

Excellent analysis. Thanks for putting this together and shining a light.

As a stoke fan , smallbone as been one of our better player's all season . Collins is a very solid center back and left a gap still not fully replaced at the back .

It's a long story, but I settled on The Republic of Ireland rather than England in the early to mid 90s, and given how good The ROI were, It's been gutting and heartbreaking to see how much they've declined. So, this video gives me a real sense of hope for the future.

Obafemi, Smallbone and Ogbene are great 😃. Fabulous video.

Absolutely brilliant video mate. Well researched and so entertaining. Well done

Hi from ireland 🇮🇪 , Brilliant video,, bang on the money in every word . Thanks for doing this .

Some incredibly impressive depth of knowledge here. Excellent vid.

Great vid, thanks 👍👍👍.. look forward to the next one...

Cov had Adaramola on loan at the start of the season but was sent back without playing a game, it was all very strange 🤔would love to see a video on Cov and the rollercoaster we've had over the years! Great video as always Alfie👍

Thanks for uploading, this is very informative...Good on ya, Mate!😁

One point you missed Alfie, is that the GAA is amateur....the profits from the games go back 100% into the organization which includes all 32 Counties .. most Clubs and there are thousands, have incredible facilities which the Community use on a daily basis. Soccer as you have mentioned has been woefully mismanaged, and the Government is right to be sceptical on giving money to the sport until it shows improvement, clubs like Bohemians are showing the way to go, being 100% fan owned and garnering massive goodwill among the Public it serves. A sizeable contingent of Irish youngsters are now moving to Spain and Italy in particular and this has to be a plus for the coming years.

Great vid.. A few jems you may not know about are Gabe Athouse at Grimsby, Eaton Beaver at Carlisle and Eric Shun at Doncaster

Excellent as always!

Great video. Thanks Alfie!

The talk about Ryan Johansson prompted a video request thought: the players who've switched international allegiances the most. I feel like switching once is relatively common (e.g. different youth team to senior team) but Johansson seems to have switched six times between three nations at youth level and coming from a mixed race background myself (as best as I can tell if I was a footballer I'd be eligible for 5-8 different nations), I'm rather fascinated by players of similarly diverse family histories and how they end up laying their allegiance to just one of them.

Dublin- Mackem here, would love a video on Irish unification in relation to football. Sunderland have some quality players from up north: Ballard, Hume, Evans, that'd make could really compliment a united national team. Aswell we've picked up a few good teenagers from Linfield who seem to have a really good talent pool. Love the vids!

As a Irishman with a dad who is a HUGE irish soccer fan, the sport is is just in a sad state compared to rugby, Gaelic football and hurling who's domestic teams get alot of attention and praise, it has become a running joke how shit we are at soccer, but the fans are still so passionate (The whole country went crazy when we qualified for the 2012 euros)and I hope we have a change in fortune soon

Great video. As an Irishman, I have great hopes for the future after watching this and it is nice to hear something positive about Irish Soccer for a change. Despite some truly awful results over the past few years, there have been some glimmers of hope in the performances against Portugal and Scotland. It has been really up and down with Stephen Kenny but in all honesty, some of the play at times has been scintillating and there has been much more onus on playing the ball on the deck and less hoofing the ball. Thankfully we are beginning to see more technical soccer with that old Irish grit. We have always had some very technically gifted players from Brady to Duff and Robbie Keane so the Stephen Kenny approach despite a lot of growing pains has been much appreciated.

Think there is a lot potential for Andy Lyons at Blackpool to go very far in the game going off what he’s shown since Jan in a lacklustre side and coming off the back of levels above displays in the Airtricity before moving to England

Great video again!

Thanks Alfie. The best football RU-vidr by miles the past 4 years or so following you. I'm a st Patrick's athletic fan and very excited about Irish football in the next ten years

Very well researched

Great video. Under 17s recently qualified for a major tournament as well 🙏

Conor McManus who recently signed for Brentford B, who is just 18, also looks to be a really promising player.

As a follower of the car crash that is Ireland National Team football in recent years, I have been aware of the golden youth generation coming through. It's all that gives me hope to keep watching defeats to Armenia, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan.

Great video, but the GAA is certainly not middle class, every small village and parish in the county has a GAA club which is the centre of almost all rural communities. Rugby would definitely be considered the most middle class sport

J'ADORE your great vidéo congratulations !

Crazy i am on a study trip to ireland with my School from denmark right now. And We were just wondering earlier about if ireland had any good upcomming players. And then i see this video, it is really the People’s Channel

Alfie great vid as always. I would love to see a vid on football history in ireland. Republic of ireland and Northern Ireland

Cathal heffernan is only 18 and is about to break into ac Milan squad, I think in a few years he will be our best center back

Love the video Alfie. I will raise a bit of concern with the statement that the LOI is an afterthought to Irish football fans. Obviously the premiership is the most watched league in the country and many people here couldn't give a shit about the LOI. However there is a considerable number of very passionate fans that create a great atmosphere every week and more importantly the league is growing. There are multiple stadiums currently being extended and the introduction of the conference league gives the league winners a very realistic opportunity to make millions out of a European campaign ever year. Yes we've been consistently fucked over by our government but I'm more hopeful for the league's future than you are. I do wonder about the influences of Brexit. It's hard to imagine the effects of some of our most talented young players not being in English academies' but potentially playing a lot of adult football between the ages of 15-18. Well done on all the irish pronunciations btw. Except for Doherty. I don't know why but english people just can't say Doherty.

I have been telling my friends about how excited I am for this Ireland team, it's been a rough decade but there is light (I hope) haha

It is important to mention that there are plenty of Irish footballers who turned their back on the Irish nationalteam for fame like Declan Rice and Jack Graelish.

a documentary on the afc Wimbledon on the nine promotions in eleven years, how they’re a fan own club and how they have a stadium in plough lane now. The story of they lost the club, how the F A allowed that and won’t allow that anymore. How they were very close to moving to ireland How they went up the English football leagues. It would be a good documentary video if you can do this. #thepeopleschannel

Great video!

Great video

I think an interesting point to note in a comparison with Wales for example is the huge decline they have suffered as a Rugby nation (traditionally their unofficial national sport) during their ascent as a footballing nation. Similarly during Irelands football golden years our rugby team was at it's lowest ebb and vice versa now that football has declined, we are having the greatest rugby era we've ever had. The conclusion to draw from this in my opinion is that small countries like Ireland and Wales simply do not have the population numbers to excell at the very top level at two major team sports internationally at the same time. Success breeds interest. I think a good illustration of this is to go on any Irish sporting website and compare the interaction between articles on rugby international games and football international games. The disparity of comments etc is staggering. This would not have been the case even 10 years a go. Constant mediocrity has made Ireland really fall out of love with football in my opinion, where as rugby is booming at the moment. It's going to certainly take a golden generation to reignite it, but I can't say I'm optimistic to be honest.

This came out nicely around the time of the rebrand

Great video! Maybe you have some data around the GAA that I don't know. But the GAA isn't really middle class in terms of perception here, but maybe a bit more rural, but just as "working class" as soccer. Also for participation rates, it isn't a great comparison as I think soccer (football) rates include all codes of the sport (so five a side indoor counts), GAA does not really provide for stripped down versions of the sport like how soccer does. There are stripped down versions but they're almost exclusively for small kids or adapted for playing in other sports pitches for exhibition games. If you were to look at the participation rates of children from 12 to 17 and adults from 18 - 30 I'd say the playing populations would be very similar, with lots of kids playing both. Side note, for around about 70 years though GAA players couldn't play or even watch "foreign sports" or they'd be banned. Some places had "Vigilance Committees" that went out and attended cricket games, or rugby or whatever and made a note of who was there.

Great video Alfie

Good video , do one on Northern Ireland and Wales and Scotland

Haven't been overly impressed by Johannson's progression since declaring but still young...hopefully comes good. Liam Kerrigan at Como an exciting winger, and Mikey Johnston too hopefully reach their potential. Great Video!

Desperately awaiting the video about the Liverpool - United game

Great video, incredible amount of research but Festy Ebosele not being in your starting 11 feels like a glaring omission at right back. He was starting in Serie A last weekend at 20 years old.

Very fair assessment of the FAI and Irish league of Ireland clubs

Really interesting that a couple of the players you mentioned were contracted to teams in Italy and one to a team in Spain. I wonder whether one of the impacts of the tightened English academy rules post-brexit will be more Irish players in the academies of Serie A/La Liga/Bundesliga teams?

As an Irish football fan great to see someone covering our national team COYBIG

Mark McGuiness deserves a mention at the back. Plays for Cardiff was on loan here at Sheffield Wednesday for the first half of the season. He was incredible when he was here(at Wednesday).

Proud of u for saying all this and having the knowledge and not just soouting appreciate u talking abt my country

Look out for Killian Phillips at Shrewsbury on loan from Palace looked like a top top player in our friendlies

Great vid and kudos for actually putting into perspective Football's place in Ireland's sporting pursuits. I've seen numerous reports on the demise of Irish football and they all fail to spot the pink elephant in the room , which as you addressed - it's not the most popular sport here. You'd be forgiving for thinking otherwise though. The P.L. as you can imagine is massively popular here, but outside urban areas grassroots football (soccer) in no way reflects this. Like you said it buckles under fierce opposition from the Gaelic games. You can be guaranteed every village in Ireland no matter how small will have two things. A Pub or a Hurling /Gaelic Football Club . As you stated though there are some rays of sunshine appearing in our national team that give some of us old enough to remember the glory days of Jacks Army and even Mick McCarthy era reason for optimism. Another factor to take positives from is the widening of our pool to select from. Historically Ireland was a nation of emigrants , so the diaspora supplied us with plenty of options thanks to the eligibility rule. The dynamic has switched now with Ireland in the 21st century being a country with an immigrant population. We can now draw on born and bred players of African, South American and Eastern European heritage who come from parts of the world with a strong football culture. All good I say. C'mon You Boys In Green !

hahaha the subtle use of the Ndidi picture when he says 'indeed' 😂😂😂

Thank u for this

A great video I've only one criticism hurling is played more in alot of counties so it should be included aswell as football

Great video! And although I really appreciate that this video is 10 times better researched than most similar videos would be in relation to Ireland, there are certain nuances to the situation you are missing out on. This is completely understandable considering you are not Irish. I am Irish, and a 'soccer man' but you can't say that most people play soccer than gaelic football and then speak about government grants in terms of how much was given to the GAA - The GAA is the governing body of both gaelic football and hurling so to compare apples and oranges you would then have to compare how many people play GAA (both football and hurling) with how many play soccer. I do also believe that the participation numbers for soccer include casual players ie. 5 a side footballers. It's also important to note that many GAA players will play soccer in the winter to keep fit even though the GAA sports would be their priority by quite alot - the soccer would be seen as a bit of fun during the off season. These players are included in the official soccer player numbers but if you were to ask many of these they would describe themselves as GAA players and not soccer players. Lots more nuances but I could go on forever.

I wrote a comment their that I instantly regretted. I deleted it and I just want to apologise to the creator. This is a graet video and really well researched. Your very good at what you do. All the best and hope there's no hard feelings.

As an Irishman and irish fan it's very refreshing to see a video this well researched and well informed, about funding, about supporter base including awareness of gaelic games and rugby, the facilities in the domestic game, the 'fiefdom' of the former ceo who is despised by fans here, for exactly that reason. The political dimension is good too, though i'm not sure a sinn fein government would rid irish football of funding, but maybe history will prove you right. Most state funding for any sport currently goes to horse racing, which is bizarre because i have never even met a horse racing fan, i know gambling addicts, but i'm not sure i would classify them as sports fans. But very good video

We have a few promising Irish youngsters at Palace. On top of Adaramola, we have Jake O'Brien (CB), currently playing every minute on loan at Molenbeek, and Killian Phillips (CM) who just won Shrewsbury's young player of the season after being on loan there since January. Think most Places fans are hoping for Championship loans for them next season and then moving into our squad the year after if they continue to progress.

Can you do a documentary about Boavista FC? One of only two clubs in Portugal who broke the hegemony of the Big Three in Portugal and were crowned champions in 2001. Played the likes of Bayern Munich and Liverpool in the UCL and reached the UEFA Cup semifinal in 2003. They were relegated in 2008 and only came back to top flight in 2014, following many years of judicial cases and financial crisis.

Good video Alfie,

Our golden generation was in the 80s, Whelan, Staunton, Brady, Aldridge, McCarthy, McGrath, Bonner, the list goes on.

Good video but would love to know what you see in Ryan Johanson. Hope he turns out as good as you think but surely Festy Ebosele who's playing for Udinese and Andy Lyons at Blackpool would be better options.

I went primary with Evan, I knew that boy was gonna be special from young. I even played at Belvo with Troy

Great video man. appreciate the work

Class wise I’d say GAA is very universal. In Ireland, rugby is seen as the middle and upper class sport

Whilst soccer is on the rise among the younger people it’ll never overtake gaa in terms of players or popularity. Every child has been a member of their local gaa club at least 1 year of their life

Legend for making this video #coybig🇮🇪🇮🇪

The league of Ireland this season has really gone up a gear. More matches shown on Tv, bigger social media presence and match days have been sold out so far this year

Ive been spotting all these youth players coming thru over the last few years and tryin to stop myself from getting over excited about it. Most of the best ones(Kevin Zefi is my fav) have dual nationalities so Im not gonna get my hopes up till theyre actually capped for us in a proper international. One good thing tho is, unlike Rice and Grealish, a lot of them are actually born in Ireland so they may choose to play for us 🙏... Kenny should just pick em all v France. Get them capped. Who cares about their ages or the game 😆..Just get em capped ffs !!🙏

Sinclair Armstrong as well looks good for us. Deserving of a mention anyway