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Keith Andrews has stated that the Ireland squad believe that they can overcome France or the Netherlands in their Euro 2024 qualifying group.
Groans could be heard around the nation on Sunday morning as third seeds Ireland were placed into a group that already contained the Dutch and the French.
Almost immediately, people were writing off Ireland’s chances of finishing in one of the two automatic qualifying spots, and when Greece were pulled out from pot 4, things didn’t look any easier.
For the Ireland assistant manager though, players will be able to draw on belief gained from previous strong performances against the likes of Portugal.
“I think they do believe, I genuinely do,” said Andrews on 2FM’s Game On. “I’ve said it to the players and I probably haven’t said it enough publicly, they’re an unbelievable group to work with it, to coach, to be around on a day-to-day basis. They buy into absolutely everything we try to achieve.
“When you look back and reflect on certain games, over two games against Portugal we deserved more than a point, I think that’s pretty fair to accept.
“It’s not to going to take a lot for the players to believe in what we do, how we are going to try and go about it.”
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The road to #EURO2024 begins in March – fixtures announced in due course #COYBIG | #WeAreOne pic.twitter.com/JZjpELyX31
— FAIreland ⚽️?? (@FAIreland) October 9, 2022
The ideal scenario for Ireland is that they finish first or second, a feat that would book their sport at the tournament in Germany in the summer of 2024.
Anything lower than that and Stephen Kenny’s side will be at the mercy of the Uefa Nations League rankings in order to get a play-off, and even then they would need to win a semi-final and a final to qualify.
We’ve seen before how Kenny’s team can raise their game on the big occasion and doing so on four occasions against France and Netherlands would go a long way to deciding our fate.
Ireland’s qualifying campaign gets underway at home to France on March 27th next year.
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