Ireland's Squad for Spain: No League of Ireland Players Selected
Heimir Hallgrimsson is taking Ireland to Spain without a single League of Ireland player – but he insists the door is not closing, just being held ajar for a different time of year.
From Thursday, a 21-man squad will gather in Murcia for a week-and-a-half of work, part training camp, part audition. It ends with a full international against Grenada on 16 May, with a behind-closed-doors hit-out against Real Murcia pencilled in beforehand.
It is a camp built for experimentation. Championship regulars whose seasons are already over, fresh faces from the English second and third tiers, and one standout teenager from Portugal.
Benfica winger Jaden Umeh, just 18 and uncapped, has been handed his first senior invite. Lincoln City’s Jack Moylan is in too, along with the likes of Josh Keeley and Aidomo Emakhu. Umeh, formerly of Cork City, arrives as someone who has already tasted League of Ireland football before moving abroad.
Yet no current League of Ireland player will board the plane.
That omission lands against a growing clamour for domestic talent. Bohemians playmaker Dawson Devoy has been heavily mentioned. Shamrock Rovers’ 17-year-old midfielder Victor Ozhianvuna has been championed publicly by his manager Stephen Bradley. Neither name appears on Hallgrimsson’s list.
The Icelandic coach had already laid the groundwork for this stance. Ireland’s “summer league” calendar means clubs are in-season, and crucially, they are under no obligation to release players outside official FIFA windows. This camp in Spain does not fall under that protection.
“It would have been nice but we would be interrupting the league,” Hallgrimsson said after unveiling his squad at FAI headquarters, stressing that he is reluctant to strip teams of key men for a non-mandatory gathering.
He floated an alternative: a January camp, built almost entirely around League of Ireland players, to bridge the gap between domestic form and international football.
“If they are good enough they will be picked at some point,” he said. “Maybe my answer to that one is we are thinking and I have always said that (a) January camp is the one for League of Ireland players.
“That’s the time when the squad will probably be made mostly of LOI players. That needs to be the next step then, just to help them to be integrated into the national team, and just to make a platform for those players.”
Talks with the FAI are “positive”, he says. The idea is clear: use the league’s off-season to stage an extra camp, work with clubs on timing, and find suitable opposition. It would give Hallgrimsson a closer look at domestic standouts without ripping holes in club line-ups mid-season.
There is a catch. The most realistic window is not next January, but early 2027, and even that comes with no guarantees.
“It’s a tight budget within the association so we need to be careful where we spend,” Hallgrimsson admitted. The concept is an aspiration, not a signed-off project.
But he believes the logic is sound. For him, a summer league is not just a scheduling headache; it is also a chance.
“Given the calendar of the League of Ireland, it makes sense to me. That’s the reasons why all the nations with a calendar like the League of Ireland are doing it. They try to expedite players who they think have potential to become national team players.
“Being in a summer league isn’t all negative because it gives advantages. This is, for me, one of them. People might disagree with me but this is my belief. I will try push it when I’m here because it gives us one extra camp with new faces.
“When I managed Iceland and Jamaica, there were always one or two players who would shine in those environments. From then on, they were in the first teams.”
The debate around domestic standards rumbles on in the background. Last week, RTÉ analyst Alan Cawley raised concerns about the overall quality of the SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division this season. UEFA’s country coefficient ranks the league 31st in Europe.
Hallgrimsson has been a regular at grounds across the country during his near two years in charge. Asked by RTÉ Sport how the league compares to, for instance, England’s League One, he offered a blunt but balanced view.
“The games I have seen have been good and bad, so it can be all over,” he said. “So that is kind of one standard but there is always an exception to every rule on this one and there will always be a player that will be ready.
“I’m not saying if we pick a January camp with 23 League of Ireland players that all of them will be in the next squad. But there will always be one or two players who can shine and that we like and will be in our minds from then on.”
For now, though, the most striking gap is not on the domestic front but in Ireland’s midfield depth chart.
The squad heading to Murcia contains no new faces in the engine room. Every midfielder called up has already been capped at senior level. At a time when Hallgrimsson wants to refresh and regenerate, that is a concern.
“We have Andy Moran, Jayson Molumby, Jason Knight, Conor Coventry, all of whom have been with us before meaning that we will be struggling in that area with experience for the next camp,” he said.
That line underlines the juggling act ahead. The plan is to lean on familiar names now, then possibly double up some players across the Murcia trip and the subsequent June friendlies against Qatar and Canada, which do fall inside a FIFA window.
“The ones that have been in our regular squad – Finn Azaz, Will Smallbone, Alan Browne – they are the ones still playing and will be in consideration for the second camp,” Hallgrimsson added. “We will see how it goes but we might need to call one or two players up for this squad, but the thought process is to have everyone in for the second one.”
One player who would almost certainly have bridged both camps is Bosun Lawal. The Stoke City man made his senior debut in March against North Macedonia, operating in a defensive midfield role and hinting at a rapid rise.
Then came the setback.
“Bosun pulled a hamstring. He would probably be one that we wanted for both camps,” Hallgrimsson said. The plan had been clear: fast-track Lawal, just as they hope to accelerate James Abankwah’s progress.
“We had already talked to Bosun before he got injured about doing both camps because he is the one we would like to kind of fast forward, same as James Abankwah - hopefully he can do both camps. That’s not the main objective, it is to see all the players use this opportunity to see all the players.”
So Ireland go to Spain with a squad that is experimental in some areas, conservative in others, and conspicuously light on home-based talent.
The January camp remains a promise in theory, not in ink. The League of Ireland hopefuls will have to keep performing, keep waiting, and keep wondering whether that dedicated window for domestic stars will arrive in time for them to seize it.
