Ireland draw Germany in tough under-21 championship qualifying group

The Republic of Ireland face a difficult path in their pursuit of qualification to the 2019 European under-21 Championship following the draw at UEFA headquarters in Nyon on Thursday morning.

Noel King’s side were drawn in a difficult-looking group consisting of Germany, Israel, Norway and Azerbaijan along with newcomers Kosovo.

King, who is entering his fifth qualifying campaign as manager, will be hoping for a vast improvement on the most recent of those that ended with a whimper last October.

“Germany are a torment for any team but when is it ever an easy draw?” said King.

“In the last qualifiers, they played ten and won ten. We have played well against them in the past without getting a point but some of our underage teams over the years have got results against them.

“The rest of the teams in the group are no mugs. Norway are a huge challenge, Israel are an excellent side and Azerbaijan beat Russia 3-0 in the last competition.

“Kosovo are a new team and I'm sure they will be very patriotic so will be a tough test for everybody. We feel we can be competitive in this group.

“I feel there are teams we can beat in this group and I include Germany in that – on the right day obviously.

“We've an opening game against Kosovo and that'll be their first ever under-21 game so it's going to be tough. It's a new campaign – everybody has to be up for it.

“We’ve retained a lot of players from the last campaign, six or seven of them have that experience which is a help, and we've got to be positive going into a campaign.”

The nine qualifying groups for the finals, which take place in Italy, feature a record 54 nations with the group winners gaining automatic qualification while the four runners-up with the best records against teams first, third, fourth and fifth in their group will enter the play-offs.

Ireland welcome Kosovo in the opening match, which has been provisionally agreed to take place on March 25th with the venue yet to be decided.

That will be followed by a daunting trip to Azerbaijan in September before hosting both Norway and Israel in October. The Boys in Green end the year away to the Norwegians on November 14th.

The full fixture list, which is subject to change, is as follows:

March 25, 2017: Ireland v Kosovo

September 5, 2017: Azerbaijan v Ireland

October 5, 2017: Ireland v Norway

October 9, 2017: Ireland v Israel

November 14, 2017: Norway v Ireland

March 27, 2018: Ireland v Azerbaijan

September 7, 2018: Kosovo v Ireland

September 11, 2018: Ireland v Germany

October 11, 2018: Israel v Ireland

October 16, 2018: Germany v Ireland