So, it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise to know that Celtic<\/a> scouts have been watching two rising Irish stars pretty closely at the U17 World Cup \u2013 Michael Noonan and Vinnie Leonard.<\/p>\n GRV\u2019s Chief Football Correspondent, Graeme Bailey, has told 67 Hail Hail that Noonan and Leonard have \u2018caught the eye\u2019 of Celtic\u2019s scouts. <\/p>\n On Friday, the Republic of Ireland\u2019s youngsters beat their Canadian counterparts on penalties to progress to the next round of the U17 World Cup, with Noonan opening the scoring during that match. <\/p>\n Centre-forward Noonan turned 17 in July, and he plays for Shamrock Rovers. <\/p>\n We have been told he has \u2018Premier League interest\u2019, but just like Leonard, he won\u2019t be allowed to officially join until they are 18 due to \u2018rules around U18 players joining clubs.\u2019 <\/p>\n Who are Michael Noonan and Vinnie Leonard?<\/p>\n Whilst Noonan is a goalscorer, his Irish counterpart plays for Dundalk and is a centre-back, and they have both racked up quite a strong number of senior appearances at their young age. <\/p>\n Noonan has played for the Republic of Ireland up until the U21 age group, whilst Leonard has played for the U16s up until the U18s. <\/p>\n Leonard\u2019s games for Dundalk: 40Clean sheets: 16<\/p>\n Johnny Kenny was recently on loan at Shamrock Rovers<\/a>, and now he is scoring goals under interim coach Martin O\u2019Neill<\/a>, so there is no reason why Noonan couldn\u2019t make the step up if Celtic wanted to push forward with a deal. <\/p>\n Noonan\u2019s games for Shamrock Rovers: 44Goals: 9Assists: 4Noonan\u2019s total games for Ireland\u2019s younger age groups: 49Goals: 27 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"67 Hail Hail understands that Celtic have been keeping a close eye on the upcoming talent at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2609,218,16298,108926,101,56,54,55,108927],"class_list":{"0":"post-263608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-exclusives","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-graeme-bailey","11":"tag-michael-noonan","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-vinnie-leonard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2245757198-1024x676.jpg\")
Photo by Noushad Thekkayil\/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesCeltic have scouts at the U17 FIFA World Cup in Qatar<\/p>\n