Former Chelsea goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini has joined the back-room staff of the Republic of Ireland Under 21s.

Cudicini joins Noel King’s squad as they prepare for Thursday’s UEFA U21 Championships Qualifier against Andorra at Waterford RSC.

Cudicini, 41, recently undertook his UEFA B licence with the Football Association of Ireland and will fill the vacant goalkeeper coaching role with the U21s for this fixture following the retirement of Alan O’Neill from the position.

“It was a no-brainer for me,” Cudicini told RTÉ Sport. “It’s such an honour, first of all, to be here with the FAI, and ... with Noel and Harry [McCue].”

The Italian’s playing career began at his local club AC Milan and took in spells with Prato and Castel di Sangro before he joined Chelsea in 1999. He later played for Tottenham and was a team-mate of Robbie Keane at LA Galaxy. He is currently coaching with QPR at Academy level.

“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,” said King.

“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.

"We’ll value his views and hopefully that’ll add strength to us" - Noel King

"Alan’s been recognised for that by the FAI with a presentation in Abbotstown so we’re happy with that. He has to move on due to work commitments and we’ll look forward to a successful time with Carlo.”

King is focused on getting the campaign off to a positive start on Thursday when Ireland start the campaign to qualify for the 2017 UEFA Under-21 Championships, which will take place in Poland.

Bradley Garmston (hamstring) and Niall Keown (groin strain) have been ruled out through injury so Reading pair Sean Long and Pierce Sweeney have been drafted in.

“There’s always nervousness ahead of competitive games. It’s always completely different to friendly games,” he added.

“We’ve Andorra at home and the expectation is to win the game. That’s the expectation but we have to approach it in the right way to make sure we win the game.

“We had a couple of games against the USA and Russia and previously had the Qatar game plus we used the Germany game which was the last fixture in the previous campaign to look at players for this campaign.

“There’s been a lot of changes. We’ve three players in for the first time and have a lot of players with just one cap also.

"We’ve had a look at players and hopefully that experience in the past 18 months will stand us in good stead on Thursday.

“Waterford is the venue for us this Thursday. It’s crucial we get a good support.”

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