Former Ireland defender John O'Shea is excited to continue his coaching journey after taking up a role with the country's Under-21s.
The Waterford native, 38, will also be moving up the ladder as he undertakes the UEFA Pro Licence coaching course with the FAI in the coming months.
And O'Shea is delighted to continue his journey, all while juggling a UEFA Masters course and his first team coach role with Reading.
O'Shea said: “Once I started hitting my 30s, I was planning for this scenario. I started my UEFA B & A Licence and it was important that I did it with the FAI, to do it back home.
“This is a continuation of it now. I’ve been doing the UEFA Masters course and that has given me an insight to the business side of football with blocks on communication, marketing, the framework of competitions, etc. Now, the UEFA Pro Licence will help me get into management & coaching side of things.
“The path that I want to take to get into management is through coaching, as it’s something that I really enjoy. Putting your ideas across to players, watching them train initially, see how they take it on-board, and working with them on it.
“At Reading, I’m working with two very experienced people in Mark Bowen & Eddie Niedzwiecki, while I’ve picked up a lot from various coaches & managers who I worked with during my playing career, both at club level and internationally. So I hope that I can take those experiences and add to them.”
With Stephen Kenny taking the senior hot-seat, O'Shea has joined Jim Crawford's Irel;and Under-21s setup.
And although the move came about swiftly, the former Man United stalwart is looking forward to work with some 'talented' players in the underage ranks.
“It came about very quickly. I spoke to a lot of people about Jim (Crawford) and then spoke to Jim. We got on great and it has moved on very quickly since then,” O’Shea added.
“One of the team’s analysts set me up on Hudl so I can watch some of the games, track the players to see how they are doing at their clubs, and look at the younger players who might be able to push up a level. I had seen some of the games already but being able to see everything is great so I can prepare for our games to come.
“There is great work going on with the underage Ireland teams, so hopefully we can continue that on and qualify with the Under-21s for the EUROs. There are some tough games to come but with a new coaching team in place everyone is very excited by it. They are also competitive games from the off, which means the adrenaline will be flowing straight away.
“It will be challenging, but getting the chance to work with Jim is fantastic. They are a great group of players, some of them I would recognise as I spoke to Tom Mohan’s Under-19s squad ahead of them going to the EUROs last summer – they had some talented kids in that group. Now I’ll get to work with some of them but, ultimately, it is all about helping Ireland to do well.”
