Azerbaijan an unknown quantity for U21s

THE draw for the 2006/07 UEFA European Under-21 Championships were also made at Montreux, Switzerland yesterday.

Don Givens’ Republic of Ireland side will play Azerbaijan on a home and away basis in a preliminary round where the winners will advance to the group stages in Group D, which will also include Greece and Belgium.

Givens said: “There will be nothing easy about Azerbaijan in our preliminary round. We have never played them before and we don’t know much about them.

“However we will get over the geographical and logistical hurdles and concentrate on the game in hand. If we are successful and progress to the group stages we will meet Greece and Belgium which is not the worst and thankfully we have avoided the big guns,” he added.

Preliminary rounds take place before July 15 with the group stages in August and September.