Ireland are set to start their qualification for the European Championships come March under Stephen Kenny who is in his third year in charge of the Irish team. Stephen Kenny had great success with Dundalk in the league of Ireland and in the Europa League, which ended up in the Dublin native getting the Irish job.
Stephen Kenny is trying to play a attractive brand of football with this Irish team, where they actually play a passing game and try and play it out from the back, rather than lumping the ball up front and hope for the best.
Ireland have been drawn with Netherlands and France in a tough qualifying group for Euro 2024.
Stephen Kenny’s side were third seeds in the draw which took place in Frankfurt and ended up being drawn with two of the toughest possible teams. This was all due to a rather disappointing Nations League campaign, one that could end up costing Stephen Kenny is job if things could bad in this qualification.
Both France and the Netherlands look extremely good at the World Cup thus far and could be worth a bet with football betting to win the tournament out right. Stephen Kenny the games where he will be judged on is the Greece and Gibraltar matches. If Stephen Kenny doesn’t get the maximum points from those games that could spell the end for the 51 year old in the job.
Ireland haven’t played France competitively since 2009, when an unpunished Thierry Henry handball contributed to France winning a World Cup play-off.
The matches against the Netherlands will bring back memories of a successful qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup, when Mick McCarthy’s side took four points from two games against the Dutch.
𝗨𝗘𝗙𝗔 𝗘𝗨𝗥𝗢 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗬𝗜𝗡𝗚
Here’s a look at our group 🇮🇪👇
The road to #EURO2024 begins in March – fixtures announced in due course #COYBIG | #WeAreOne pic.twitter.com/JZjpELyX31
— FAIreland ⚽️🇮🇪 (@FAIreland) October 9, 2022
As hosts, Germany will automatically qualify for the tournament, while Russia are still banned by Uefa due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
The 53 remaining associations have been divided into ten groups, seven of which contain five teams and three of which contain six teams.
The winners and runners-up in each group will qualify automatically for Euro 2024, while the remaining three teams will be decided through play-offs.
Ireland will take on France first on the 27th of March at the Aviva Stadium, that’s good for Ireland with a sell out crowd and who knows what way the French will be after the World Cup maybe Ireland can get something out of it.
Stephen Kenny has got good young players coming through and maybe this could be the start of something special and there’s no doubt that Kenny has got Irish football’s best interests at heart. So I’m going for Ireland to qualify through the qualifications and come third in the group #COYBIG☘️