First the good news: veterans of Ireland’s ill-fated 2012 campaign can sleep easy; Croatia, like Italy, will be second seeds for the finals of Euro 2016, in France, next summer and so a repeat of the nightmare group line-up Giovanni Trapattoni and his men faced in Poland is not possible this time. The expansion of the tournament, in fact, means even the worst-case scenario could not be as bad as the one three years ago in which Ireland found themselves competing with those two plus the reigning world champions for a place in the tournament’s quarter-finals. Martin O’Neill will find out on December 12th just who his side must overcome this time and the team’s supporters will discover the same...
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