With the European Championship qualifiers in full swing, and Ireland playing Germany for the second qualification campaign in a row, it got us thinking... How often do the same names get drawn out of the hat to play in Ireland's group?
It seems like this is the first campaign ever that we haven't drawn Cyprus, we had memories of playing Italy with frightening regularity, and then you have the likes of Georgia and the Faroe Islands who always seem to provide an inconvenience for our travelling fans.
So we took it upon ourselves to conduct the research and find out just how often Ireland are drawn with the other teams in Europe, going back to the World Cup 1994 qualification campaign, and including playoffs. Here are the results:
Cyprus - 4 times
Only four times? It really feels more like eight or nine. Immediate flashbacks of that disgraceful 5-2 loss in Nicosia haunt our brains.
Germany, Georgia, & Macedonia - 3 times
The Germans are a more recent foe, as we were lucky enough to draw them for the 3rd time just after they became World Cup winners. Nobody likes going to Tbilisi, and the less said about Skopje the better.
Northern Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Albania, Portugal, Austria, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Estonia, Andorra, Switzerland, Russia, France, Faroe Islands, Slovakia - 2 times
Some great memories, and some not so great memories with this lot. Holland and Portugal bring back visions of the fanatic 2002 World Cup campaign, and Estonia were a great bunch of lads in the Euro 2012 playoff, but then the Swiss and their torment of Brian Kerr with the likes of Hakan Yakin.
It seems as though the almost customary annual friendly with Italy has clouded our judgement, as we have only drawn them once.
