O’Neill ‘confident’ for Euro 2016 despite draw

Italy will have to tangle with Sweden, Belgium, and the Republic of Ireland in Euro 2016.

The game at the Aviva stadium will be the final friendly before the squad meet up to prepare for Euro 2016 in mid-June, and four days after the team play Switzerland on Good Friday.

Elsewhere, Northern Ireland were also dealt a tough draw, as they found themselves in Group C alongside Poland, the Ukraine and world champions Germany, while England and Wales have been drawn alongside each other in Group B with Slovakia and Russian Federation making up the group.

Security will be a key issue at next summer’s tournament after last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris, one of which targeted the Stade de France, but Glenn said the FA would endeavour to avoid the kind of fortress mentality which the England players so resented at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, when they were stuck for lengthy periods inside their training base.

“We are ambitious but we know we have to work hard and that we can improve a lot”. But we’ll go there with confidence.

Les Bleus coach Didier Deschamps told reporters: “We don’t know the Romanian team that well even though they performed very well during the qualification stage with the best defence and just two goals scored against them”.

“Sweden is a game to look forward to, so let’s go for it. They are not a one-man team, although Ibrahimovic has been a top class player”.

Spain will begin their bid for an unprecedented third successive European Championship title against Czech Republic after the draw for the 2016 finals was made at the Palais des Congress yesterday.

“It doesn’t matter who is in the group”, said Iceland’s joint coach Heimir Hallgrimsson. One of them, Paddy McCourt, has been a regular for his country since the peak of his career at Celtic. Gareth Bale will finally get a chance to shine on a big stage for Wales.

The same applies for Belgium, one has to look no further than Eden Hazard, Thibout Courtois (both Chelsea), Kevin de Bruyne, Vincent Kompany (both Manchester City), Nacer Chadi (Tottenham Hotspur), Romelu Lukaku (Everton) and Morouane Fellaini (Manchester United).

Tournament chances: Belgium will be many people’s dark horses for the tournament and they can be considered to be in that chasing pack behind the three tournament favourites – Spain, Germany and the hosts France.

Belgium are ahead of Ireland on quality of player by a distance but if Ireland can sit back and frustrate Belgium, they may struggle to open Martin O’Neill’s men up.

France last hosted the Euro in 1984 and won it thanks to the brilliance of Michel Platini’s nine goals from midfield.

The top two teams in each group and the four best runners-up advance to the last 16. Sweden and Rep. Ireland both qualified through the playoff picture so both teams will have to dig deep to really push Italy to finish in second place. “Italy have not been as strong in qualifying this time but are traditionally good in final tournaments”.

But O’Neill has also had to try to stem the flow of young players who’ve been tempted to play for the Republic of Ireland.