Ireland’s under-21 game against Italy next month has sold out with the FAI announcing on Friday morning that all seats at the roughly 8,000 seat venue have now been allocated.
The association’s season ticket holders are entitled to attend under-21 internationals for free and a substantial percentage of the overall total will have been accounted for by increased interest amongst those supporters but the attendance will still be close to twice that for last month’s home win over Armenia.
The involvement of players like Troy Parrott, Caoimhín Kelleher and Aaron Connolly – all of who have made first team debuts for their clubs in England in recent weeks – in the side that night as well as the general team performance and the positive comments afterwards by Mick McCarthy will all have helped to generate additional interest in the side’s progress while the manner of the victory a few days later in Sweden where Parrott scored twice in a 3-1 win will have grabbed even more attention.
Ireland currently top their qualification group with three wins from three games although Iceland and Italy both also have maximum points having played fewer matches so far and the visit of Italy to Tallaght on October 8th, may well prove crucial to the home team’s hopes of making it to a European Championship for the first time ever.
Stephen Kenny, who had to stay on in Sweden for a number of days after the game there due to having taken ill as the group prepared to travel home, is due to name his squad on Wednesday. It is unclear yet whether the progress made by some of his players at club level might prompt McCarthy, who names his squad for the Georgia and Switzerland games the day before, into handing one or two of them senior call-ups.
