O'Brien: We proved we can compete with the best

Republic of Ireland Under-17 manager Colin O'Brien says his team’s journey at the European Championship demonstrates that the country can compete with the best.

After losing their opening game of the competition, the Boys in Green swept aside Wales and hosts Hungary to emerge from the group stages, but found a quality Spanish side a bridge too far in a 3-0 quarter-final defeat.

In truth, Ireland were forced into chasing and closing down as their opponents enjoyed large spells of possession at the Hidegkuti Nandor Stadium in Budapest.

One-nil down at the interval, the Spaniards were full value for their victory, but O’Brien is happy with the bigger picture.

"I’m immensely proud of them," he said afterwards.

"We got out of a very tricky group after a tough opener. We pitted ourselves against a top nation in world football, not just European football.

"We competed, we tried to stay in the game, tried to carry a threat, but there were a lot of tired actions at times. We just couldn’t ask any more of them.

"They’ll be disappointed, but when they reflect on it they did themselves, family and nation proud."

Captain Freddie Turley said that for all the Spanish quality, there were moments where Ireland could have capitalised to keep in the game.

"The lads were getting in behind and we were causing them problems," he said.

"We need to be clinical because they had the ball for so long. We showed our quality going forward, we just lacked a little end product."

O’Brien has previously referenced how Ireland were playing with the youngest squad in the tournament, and he is hopeful that championships exposure will stand to his players when the qualifiers roll around in September.

"We’d be hoping the experience they got will be a good starter for