Noel King's Ireland U21 side will be given a boost before their upcoming qualifier against Andorra with the news that former Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini will be helping out as goalkeeper coach.
King confirmed that the Italian stopper who last played for LA Galaxy with Robbie Keane out in the MLS would be joining the coaching staff earlier today:
Carlo Cudicini is coming in to the do the goalkeepers initially, we’ll see how it goes and work together to try and win the game obviously. His experience will be a great help to us. It won’t be just goalkeeping – we’ll include him as we do with all our staff in the preparation. We’ll value his views and hopefully that’ll add strength to us.
We’re thankful to Alan O’Neill who has been with us and the Association for a great number of years and has been a great servant. He has to move on due to work commitments and we’ll look forward to a successful time with Carlo.
It's certainly a strange one, but we're delighted to see a Premier League cult hero such as Cudicini help out with the Irish boys. The Italian was a firm fan favourite at Chelsea before losing his starting place to Petr Cech after the arrival of Jose Mourinho.
We're now eagerly awaiting the announcement of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Jesper Gronkjaer as advisory coaches to complete the influence of Ranieri's Chelsea on the youth of Irish football.
via Goal.com
