WORK TRIP
Dundalk ace Aidan Russell-Vargas eyeing World Youth Cup qualification with Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic are in a group with Canada, El Salvador and Honduras
MOST post-Leaving Cert plans revolve around a holiday with mates, a summer job or binge-watching Netflix.
For Dundalk player Aidan Russell-Vargas, it involves trying to help Dominican Republic qualify for the World Youth Cup.
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The 18-year-old was yesterday named in the country’s provisional 25-man squad for the 12-team CONCACAF Under-20 Championships and, in the coming day, will depart for Mexico where it will be whittled down to 21.
Dominican Republic are in a group with Canada, El Salvador and Honduras with their first game on July 20. The semi-finalists will progress to the World Youth Cup in Chile next year.
The inclusion of the Lusk native in a largely home-based squad – which also features some players plying their trade in Italy, Spain and the USA - might appear random.
But the seeds were sown when his eligibility was picked up on when he was playing for Shelbourne’s Under-15s, then managed by current Bohemians women’s boss Ken Kiernan.
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FAMILY LIFE
The player’s mother Elba left the The player’s mother Elba left the Dominican Republic for the USA aged 13 for the USA aged 13 and his father Trevor explained: “I would share some Dominican sports news on Twitter.
“And a scout Elimelec De Los Santos sent me a private message asking me what my link was because obviously my name isn’t Dominican and I told him about my son and they’ve been monitoring him since.”
The randomness mirrors his own experience of landing a soccer scholarship in the USA when his dreams of a move to England had passed him by.
He said: “My dad was working in a man’s house, they were talking about football, and he said he’d been on a scholarship in the USA and knew some coaches. He came out to watch me and it went from there.”
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He attended Felician University in New Jersey, where he met Elba, and was playing semi-pro in the USL until they moved not long after Aidan was born in May 2006.
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Trevor explained: “Elba was a news producer Telemundo NBC, a brilliant job, and she loved her career but she was working 14-hour days.
"And one day she came home and said ‘I can’t do this anymore, I’ve a brand new baby and I’m not seeing him, let’s move to Ireland’.
“I said ‘Are you sure? Why don’t we go to the Dominican Republic instead. But at the time the economy was booming in Ireland and it wasn’t over there. And that was it, we came home in 2007.”
INTERNATIONAL ALLEGIANCE
Before they relocated, Aidan was brought on his first trip to Dominican Republic which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
The central midfielder has been back three times since, the last of which was in 2022 when he and his family sat down with the Director of Football for their international sides.
Since then, they have kept tabs on his progress through full-match videos on YouTube and clips. In recent weeks.
He has been involved in online calls with the squad some of which have included the senior team manager Marcelo Neveleff.
The teenager – who has a 14-year-old sister Carolina - has no doubt about what it would mean to his family for him to represent the country.
Aidan said: “It would be amazing. Obviously I don’t live there but for my family, for my mam, especially for her, she’d be very happy.
“I’m more Irish because I live here but I grew up with both cultures, we speak Spanish a bit at home.”
And, football-wise, it would be a further progression having played for the Irish Schools alongside his Dundalk team-mate Eoin Kenny, who has been featuring regularly for the Lilywhites’ first team this term.
His good friend Seán Keogh, with whom he previously played for both Skerries Town and Shels, made his senior debut against Waterford on Friday whetting Russell Vargas’ appetite for a similar breakthrough.
Aidan said: “It shows that there’s a pathway there.
“I played for the first team in pre-season which was a good experience and, if I can play international football, then hopefully it can help me push on.”
Trevor – who will be avidly watching the games on CONCACAF’S YouTube channel if Aidan gets the nod – added: “It’s a marvellous opportunity, it could open another world to him.
“If you remember the Jack Charlton Ireland teams, a lot of the players were English-born, now you see a lot of players who were born or grew up in Ireland playing for other countries.
"It’s kind of flipping the script a little bit.”