Eamon Dunphy is predicting that the Republic of Ireland Ireland can "go pretty deep" into Euro 2016.
Ireland are 8/1 bets to win a tough Group E that features Belgium, Sweden and Italy and many people are expecting them to fall at the first fence.
But Dunphy is optimistic that the Boys in Green can put the memory of their Euro 2012 flop - when they lost all three games - behind them and make the knock-out stages.
“I think we’ll do well,” said the RTÉ soccer analyst. “I would hope that we would progress out of our group to the last 16 and after that, you don't know.
"We could get to the quarter-finals..." Eamon Dunphy runs the rule over Ireland's #Euro2016 hopes #RTEsoccerhttps://t.co/jVc89Y0YE3
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) June 9, 2016
“We could get to the quarter-final and go pretty deep into the tournament.
“We have a good team, there’s good team spirit there, there’s good bonding amongst the players and if we pick the right team and they play to their abilities, then we can look forward to being in the tournament a long time.”
The top two teams from the six groups, plus the four best third-placed teams go through to the last 16.
That means that only eight teams are eliminated at the group stages, giving Ireland a better than even chance of making the knock-out rounds.
