{"id":139798,"date":"2025-11-14T17:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T17:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/139798\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T17:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T17:36:10","slug":"from-belvo-boy-to-teenage-premier-league-debut-and-dutch-renaissance-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/139798\/","title":{"rendered":"From Belvo boy to teenage Premier League debut and Dutch renaissance \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI think it\u2019s probably the best night that I\u2019ve ever had in my whole life,\u201d said Troy Parrott<\/a> after his two goals against Portugal on Thursday evening. \u201cI have no words to describe it. I\u2019m just overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how he still was when he met up with his mother Jennifer after the game. \u201cHe was a bit quiet, I think he was taking it all in \u2013 he\u2019s still taking it all in,\u201d she told Oliver Callan on RT\u00c9 radio.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old has had plenty of memorable days along the way, both for his clubs and his country, especially at underage level, but nothing quite compared to this. And on an overwhelming night like that, there\u2019s a fair chance that he was reflecting on his footballing journey which, like any other, has had its ups and downs. <\/p>\n

Earlier in the morning, Belvedere, the schoolboy club Parrott left to join Tottenham when he was just 16, saluted him alongside two throwback photos. \u201cIreland\u2019s finest, north inner city proud,\u201d they tweeted.<\/p>\n

It was from there he set off for London in 2017 to embark on his professional career, the then Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino sufficiently impressed by the young Dubliner to bring him in to training with the first-team squad at an early stage. <\/p>\n

By the summer of 2019 he was starting up front alongside Harry Kane and Son Heung-min in preseason friendlies, his appearances including one against Juventus, who featured a certain Cristiano Ronaldo in their line-up.<\/p>\n

\"TroyTroy Parrott celebrates scoring a goal against FC Groningen with AZ Alkmaar team-mate Mateo Chavez. Photograph: Bas Czerwinski\/ANP\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Come September of that year, Pochettino gave him his first-team debut, at just 17, in a League Cup match, and three months later, by which time Jos\u00e9 Mourinho had replaced Pochettino, he was making his first appearance in the Premier League. <\/p>\n

There followed, though, a string of loan moves to lower league clubs, Millwall, Ipswich, MK Dons and Preston, injuries not helping his progress, and while Spurs gave Parrott a new contract that was due to keep him at the club until the summer of 2023, he was beginning to assume his future lay elsewhere. <\/p>\n

The key move in his career happened in August 2023 when he broadened his horizons, left English shores and joined Dutch club Excelsior on loan. And he hasn\u2019t looked back since switching to the Netherlands. <\/p>\n

\"\"What will Joe Schmidt’s legacy with Australia be?<\/p>\n

Nineteen goals in that season with the Rotterdam side earned him a move to AZ Alkmaar, who paid Spurs around \u20ac8 million for the striker. He maintained his goalscoring form, describing his debut season with the club as the \u201cbest year of my life so far in football\u201d. Inevitably, that led to no end of speculation about him joining one of the bigger Dutch clubs or moving back to the Premier League, but thus far, Alkmaar have held on to him.<\/p>\n

Scoring twice against Portugal will, no doubt, have more clubs glancing in his direction, but having found his feet in Dutch football, and saying how he has \u201cloved every second\u201d of his time with Alkmaar, he might not be in any great rush to leave. Unless, of course, they receive an offer they cannot afford to turn down. <\/p>\n

For now, he is overwhelmed and Jennifer is pinching herself. \u201cI actually thought I was in a dream,\u201d she said of the experience of watching her son from the stands in the Aviva Stadium. \u201cIt was just brilliant. My heart was in my mouth. All of us were there, his brothers and sisters, and we were just full of emotions, we were just crying and jumping around. As soon as I saw him, I just gave him a big hug and told him I was so proud.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think it\u2019s probably the best night that I\u2019ve ever had in my whole life,\u201d said Troy Parrott…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,1842,112,3568,44452],"class_list":["post-139798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-sports","tag-tottenham-hotspur","tag-troy-parrott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}