Republic of Ireland Under-17 head coach Colin O'Brien warned his side that they cannot underestimate anyone after confirmation that they will face Canada in the last 32 of the FIFA World Cup on Friday
The Boys in Green topped Group J unbeaten to ease into the knockout stages in Qatar, with Tuesday's 0-0 draw against Paraguay following 4-1 and 2-1 wins over Panama and Uzbekistan respectively.
Canada reached the last 32 after finishing second behind France in their own group to set up a meeting with Ireland with the kick-off time on Friday confirmed to be at 3.15pm Irish time.
The match will be broadcast live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player ahead of live coverage of the Irish under-21s' European qualifier against England in Birmingham.
"Canadian football would have a lot of influence from the United States and in their confederation it would be USA, Mexico, those kind of teams they would be coming up against," O'Brien said.
"Football there is well resourced, it's well structured there. As I kept saying to the players coming in here and since we've come here, it hasn't changed, you cannot underestimate any team.
"But we've qualified out of the group stage. We're into like a new competition now basically. It's knockout football, it's cup football, everything's at stake now in the next round to try and stay here as long as we can.
"And what we'll do is like what we've always done since we've come in. We'll just work day by day now to that game, get back into that mindset and be prepared to take on the Canadians."
Ireland captain Rory Finneran said he and his team-mates would be looking to get up to speed when it comes to knowledge of the specific threats that Canada will pose.
"Obviously, we don't know much about them. It's not a team that we've played before or we'd know much about so it's interesting and obviously we'll prepare well for the game and hopefully get a result out of that," he said.
"The next game is always the biggest game, so we'll do a lot of prep for that and it will be interesting to see what they're like and hopefully we can win the game."
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Watch Republic of Ireland v Portugal in World Cup qualifying on Thursday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport. Listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch England v Republic of Ireland in European Under-21 Championships qualifying on Friday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport.
