John Egan believes his Republic of Ireland team-mate Gavin Bazunu has the ability to go to the very top.
Sheffield United defender Egan was part of the defence which started in front of the Manchester City youngster in the 4-1 friendly win over Andorra last Thursday.
Having missed the start of Ireland's 2022 World Cup qualifiers and the friendly against Qatar in March through injury, the Andorra game marked the first time Egan had started in the same line-up as the former Shamrock Rovers goalkeeper, who spent last season on loan at Rochdale.
Speaking ahead of Tuesday's friendly against Hungary, the defender has been impressed by the teenager.
"Having trained with him now over the last week, you can really see how good he is - all three keepers to be fair, Caoimhin and Trav as well," Egan said in reference to Liverpool's Caoimhin Kelleher and Bournemouth's Mark Travers.
"We've got really strong competition there and Gav, for someone so young, to play in that position, especially which is the most scrutinised position on a football pitch, is fantastic to see his composure and his ability.
"He wouldn't be contracted to Man City if he didn't have ability. He's a top young keeper, a top young talent and hopefully he can keep growing and keep improving. The sky's the limit for Gav really."
Egan also reserved praise for Anthony Barry, the Chelsea backroom coach, who is now part of Stephen Kenny's Ireland set-up.
"The ideas I've learned from him have been unreal in a week already and I can see why he's at a club like Chelsea," he said.
Not for the first time, Egan wore the armband for Ireland, describing the experience of deputising for the injured Seamus Coleman in the role as "the pinnacle".
"It's a huge honour. To play for your country is a huge honour and to wear the armband, it's special, and it's something that I'm really proud to have done and my family were all buzzing. It's the pinnacle really," he said.
Of collective significance was the easing of pressure on the current crop of Irish senior players in being able to shake off a long winless run by coming back from a goal down against Andorra to win by three clear goals against a team, he admitted, that they were expecting to beat.
"We can take confidence from scoring the four goals and getting the win. It's been a while coming that win and to go there the other night, go 1-0 down as well, there was a lot of pressure on people but we stayed calm and we knew our quality would show in the end and what we'd been working on would come out," he said.
"There's been a bit of relief and a smile on people's faces after the win which was good, so hopefully we can take that in now to the game (against Hungary) and hopefully we can play as well as we can and hopefully we can get a result."
Watch Hungary v the Republic of Ireland live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player on Tuesday from 7pm
