Cathal Heffernan ended his season at AC Milan by making his debut at ‘Primavera 1’ level - and by training with first-team stars such as Zlatan Ibrahimović and Olivier Giroud.
The Cork City youngster, who only turned 17 last month, made a shock loan move to the Serie A giants earlier this year, with a view to making the move permanent this summer.
Since his switch he made almost 20 appearances at underage level, but yesterday he made the step up to a side made up mostly of Under-19s and older reserve team players.
He came on for the final 10 minutes of their 4-2 win over Genoa - and was snapped afterwards with Milan legend and current technical director Paolo Maldini.
On Saturday he was drafted into the end of first-team training ahead of their Serie A clash with Atalanta, as boss Stefano Pioli took his players through set-piece drills.
The Ireland Under-17 captain’s future is set to be thrashed out in the coming weeks.
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