The Republic of Ireland under-21s have been paired with Azerbaijan in the preliminary round of the 2006/07 UEFA European Championship.
Don Givens’ side will have to get the better of Azerbaijan over two legs if they are to progress to the championships proper, where they will be in Group D with Belgium and Greece.
Ireland have never played Azerbaijan before and for Givens it will a trip into the unknown.
"Really when we looked at the pool of teams we could get then Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were ones we were hoping to avoid," he said.
"Purely from the unknown factor we were hoping to be paired with someone more familiar and, I suppose, from a logistical point of view there were possible opponents more conveniently placed for travel.
"My initial reaction is that it is a little unfortunate that our hopes did not work out in that sense but now we know where we stand we must get down to doing the planning to ensure it ends happily for us," he added.
