Republic of Ireland Men’s Under-17s are set to play The Netherlands in a friendly double header in North Brabant, The Netherlands, in September.

Colin O’Brien will take a squad to the village of Velp for games scheduled to be played on Wednesday, September 21 and Friday, September 23.

The friendlies will form part of the preparation towards the first round of UEFA European U17 Championships qualifiers to be held in Norway in October. Ireland are drawn in Group 10 with Armenia, Belarus and Norway.

Speaking about the games, Head Coach Colin O’Brien said: “Our players will be coming up against a side that is extremely high quality. They (The Netherlands) are ranked number one in Europe and they always have strong youth teams.

“This will be a challenge of the highest level. For our players, these games will be full of intensity but we’ll look forward to the challenge.

“They will be the hardest games our players will face this season, there’s no other way of dressing that up, but for a young player these are the games they should want to play in and for them as individuals to test themselves against quality opposition.”

O’Brien has held number of assessment days for with MU17s players as well as a three-day training camp in Dublin. Due to the impact of COVID-19, this is only the second year of international football for this current crop of 17s footballers.

O’Brien added: “Last year was this age group’s only year of international football, but the positive is that they’ve had a year of football with their clubs and it’s good to get the group in together.

“This age group is now in the mindset of moving towards European competition - that’s the big change. That’s why we need training camps and high-quality opposition.

“The simple fact is, the first phase of qualifiers is the most important phase. If the players want to keep that momentum and competitiveness for the season they have get through that first phase.

“It’s tournament football, it’s knock-out football and the pressure is different but we’ll get the players prepared and get them into the mindset that ‘ok. you’re going into a European competition now’.”

Republic of Ireland Men’s Under-17s Fixtures

Wednesday, September 21 | The Netherlands MU17 v Republic of Ireland MU17, Kranenhof, Velp, The Netherlands, KO 6pm (Irish time)

Friday, September 23 | The Netherlands MU17 v Republic of Ireland MU17, Kranenhof, Velp, The Netherlands, KO 6pm (Irish time)