Jim Crawford: Making it to big tournaments the ultimate aim

The remit of your everyday underage international manager can be a hard one to pinpoint.

Qualifying for major tournaments and challenging for prizes is one thing, but producing competent performers for the senior stage may be looked at as the ultimate aim, perhaps even in lieu of results on the pitch.

However, having missed out on Euro 2023 qualification after a penalty shootout play-off loss to Israel last September, Republic Of Ireland Under-21 manager Jim Crawford very much knows what he wants. His present class are determined to go one step further and book a place in the Under-21 Euro 2025 finals in Slovakia.

They start their campaign on Friday night at home to Turkey in Turner's Cross and follow that up quickly with another home tie against San Marino on Tuesday evening. Crawford reminds us that the next Irish team to qualify for a major Under-21 tournament will of course be the first team to do so.

"Qualifying for the big tournaments is important," Crawford told RTÉ Sport this week. "It's important to have players and staff in the frame of mind of, 'c’mon, let’s qualify here’. It’s something we talk about quite a lot. We do want to qualify, same with the last campaign and the campaign before that. Everyone wants to make that breakthrough and become the first 21s team to qualify for a finals.

"For no other reason than to challenge yourself against the best players in Europe. It offers a real springboard for development if you play in tournaments likes that against the best teams in Europe. Yeah, it’s great when you get players who are still qualified for the 21s who move up to the senior team. Whether that’s Festy [Ebosele], Evan [Ferguson], Andrew Omobamidele, Gavin Bazunu. Troy Parrot’s another one,

"When you look at