THERE ARE MOUNTAINS less steep than Ireland’s task to qualify for Euro 2024.
Ireland were drawn in Group B with Netherlands, France, Greece and Gibraltar in Frankfurt this afternoon, greatly diminishing their chances of finishing among the group’s top two and qualifying for the Championships in Germany.
Netherlands were drawn from the top seeds, with France the worst possible outcome from pot two.
Ireland manager Stephen Kenny says his side will have to do “something extraordinary” to finish among the top two.
“No doubt it is a tough draw”, said Ireland manager Stephen Kenny. “Nobody wanted France as a second seed, I think that is fair to say, and Greece are a good team.
“But we have shown a capacity to get good results against Portugal, Serbia; Scotland and Belgium this year. You can see the improvement in the team and the capacity to score goals. We will look to continually improve.
“We just need to pick off big results over the year. We will have to do something extraordinary to finish in the top two and that is our intention. We want to do that.”
Does he believe Ireland can qualify?
“I think we are capable of big performances but we haven’t show it consistently”, replied Kenny. “We have to show we can do it consistently. That’s what we are building towards, that’s what we have to show.”
Kenny said he is unsure of the benefits of the underdogs tag.
“I don’t know if it’s a help or a hindrance. For us, the Irish public are behind us. There was 45,000 at the Aviva for Armenia on a Tuesday and with Norway coming up [in a November friendly] that should be a sellout.
“All these World Cup qualifiers will be full houses. They are really getting behind this team. The number of caps with all these players, they have so much more experience, we will be ready for March and ready for June.
“Only eight games so we just got to pull off some big performances. And we are capable of that, we’ve shown that we go toe to toe with Portugal both home and away.”
The challenges of the Dutch and the French are obvious, but Greece represent one of the more difficult draws from the fourth pot: they were the second-highest ranked side among those seeds per Fifa world ranking.
“They won their [Nations League] group and have had some good recent results, they beat Northern Ireland twice.
“They’ll be tough opponents for France and Holland as well. I don’t mind getting a strong fourth seed because teams will take points off each other. We just got to maximise our own performances.”
Kenny added that he hoped to scout the Netherlands and France at the World Cup in Qatar.