Northern Ireland national team talent pool: October 2023
Background This is a breakdown of the current talent pool available to Michael O’Neill as of October 2023. As a long time holder of a block booking I have seen the lows of when we sang ‘we’re not very good’ to the highs of qualifying for Euro 2016. I would hope that we manage to qualify for another major tournament sometime in the near future but current results would suggest we are a long way from that. The point of this piece is to analyse the talent we have available and to adjust expectations. I have complied a list of 129 eligible players. The 129 players who have made the list are there because they fulfil one or more of the following criteria: · Currently active and capped for the senior team · Currently active and has been called up to the NI senior squad · Has been been called up to the NI U21s squad in the last few years ·...