Ferdinand: 'I do dream of playing for the senior Irish team but I need to keep on playing well with Southend'
Southend United's teenage midfielder Kane Ferdinand has been raising eyebrows with his form for a while now, ask Peterborough's very own stalker Barry Fry, and was rewarded with a call-up on standby for the Republic of Ireland's under-21 squad this week.
The young Irish squad are due to play in Sligo on Monday, November 14th in a UEFA Euro 2013 under-21 qualifier.
If he gets the nod for the game Ferdy will be unlikely to be in the team to take on League One Preston North End in the F.A. Cup First Round tie scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 12th with a 15.00 kick-off.
However, for now it's all the League Two clash of the day against Oxford United, the team Kane made his senior debut against on the first day of 2011, we won 2-0 by the way!
Ferdinand told www.echo-news.co.uk: “I’m really pleased to have been put on standby because it wasn’t something I was expecting, but I would be even more pleased if I got called up into the squad. I’ve played for the under-18 and under 19s before and it’s brilliant. The games are massive and it’s always a special moment when the national anthems are played before the matches kick-off. I do one day dream of playing for the senior Ireland team but I’m aware I need to keep on playing well with Southend, so hopefully I can do that again when we play Oxford this weekend.”
And that first step up to League football seems a long tiome ago for the Southend starlet.
Ferdy says: “This time last season I was still in the youth team at Southend and I was looking forward to FA Youth Cup games. To go from there to playing close to 40 games in the first team and being called up by Ireland is brilliant. That Oxford game seems a lot longer ago than January, but it would be brilliant to keep on doing well to try and keep this run we’re on going.”
Which we all hope as well, good luck Kane.
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The Ferdy Files
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Kane Ryan Ferdinand[1] | ||
| Date of birth | 7 October 1992 | ||
| Place of birth | Newham, London, England | ||
| Height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) | ||
| Playing position | Midfielder | ||
| Club information | |||
| Current club | Southend United | ||
| Number | 12 | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 2006–2010 | Southend United | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 2011– | Southend United | 37 | (6) |
| National team‡ | |||
| 2010 | Republic of Ireland U18 | 2 | (0) |
| 2011 | Republic of Ireland U19 | 6 | (0) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 18:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC). † Appearances (Goals). ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 19:58, 8 January 2011 (UTC) |
|||
(Player info supplied by Wikipedia, for the full article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_Ferdinand)