Colin O'Brien has urged his Republic of Ireland U17s to forget about their German hammering and rally themselves for a huge derby collision against England in the UEFA European U17 Championships quarter-final.
The Irish were taught some harsh lessons on Wednesday, suffering a mauling in their final Group C game in Croatia.
Despite their 7-0 loss to Germany, Ireland qualified for the knockout stages and will face the old enemy in Zagreb on Saturday morning (11am). O'Brien wants a big response.
"We have a process with the players whether we win, draw or lose matches," he said.
"We’ll always look back to look forward. Our message to the players has been, the group stages was about three games. We performed very well in two games and we weren’t at our standards for the third game.
"The players have had the opportunity to look back at certain stages of that game, speak about it and then we got out on the pitch this morning and had a very good session. Everyone realises now we are in a different competition, it’s knockout now and it’s a derby game for us."
A semi-final clash against Turkey awaits tomorrow's winners, as well as a place in October’s FIFA U17 World Cup in India.
Standing in Ireland’s way will be a classy England side who topped Group D with a 100% record following wins over Netherlands, Norway and Ukraine.
"England are a high-quality team," O'Brien added.
"They are very strong at the back, have very good ball-playing midfielders and their big players are their forwards where they have a lot of creativity, pace and power.
"We will have learned a lot from the last game, what we need to do better, and if the players do that earlier tomorrow we’ll be fine.
"The main thing is that our players learn. This is about their future. They are in a quarter-final of a European Championships, it’s the furthest we’ve come in 20 years and they are getting loads of experience from it.That can only be good for our players going forward up to 18s, 19s, and U21s."
There must be a winner tomorrow so we could see UEFA's new ABBA penalty shootout system, which is designed to prevent the team that goes second from being put at the psychological disadvantage of always having to play catch-up.
Team A goes first, team B second and third, team A fourth and fifth and so.
It's also being trialled at the women’s Euro U17 Championship in the Czech Republic.
Republic of Ireland U17 squad
Goalkeepers: Brian Maher (St Patrick’s Athletic), Kian Clarke (Bohemians) Defenders: Lee O’Connor (Manchester United), Kameron Ledwidge (St Kevin’s Boys), Nathan Collins (Cherry Orchard), Jordan Doherty (Sheffield United), Daryl Walsh (Waterford FC), Joe Redmond (Birmingham City) Midfielders: Aaron Bolger (Shamrock Rovers), Luke Nolan (St Patrick’s Athletic), Brandon Kavanagh (Bohemians), Richard O’Farrell (St Patrick’s Athletic), Gavin Kilkenny (Bournemouth), Callum Thompson (Wolverhampton Wanderers) Forwards: Rowan Roache (Blackpool), Adam Idah (College Corinthians), Aaron Connolly (Brighton & Hove Albion), Tyreik Wright (Lakewood AFC)
