Netherlands

It is a little difficult to gauge at what stage the Dutch are at present. Their build-up to the European Championship, which they will host next summer with Belgium, has not gone entirely smoothly to date.

Under new coach Frank Rijkaard the results have been erratic and some of the performances bizarre, not least the recent 5-5 draw with their co-hosts.

Still, with Guus Hiddink at the helm in France last year, the Netherlands showed they once again have a collection of players capable of making a real impact.

They put both Yugoslavia and Argentina out of the competition and were rapidly becoming the most tipped team around when they lost narrowly to defending champions Brazil.

It was a familiar story for the Dutch who should have won the World Cup in 1974 when they lost in the final to Germany and may just have thought better of upsetting the Argentinians four years later when they were not nearly so impressive.

They are strong throughout the team with Jaap Stam, Edgar Davids and Dennis Bergkamp among the bigger stars and though the Republic's record against them is not so bad, it will take performances on a par with the one against Yugoslavia in Dublin for Mick McCarthy's men to get anything out of the two matches. World ranking: 17.

Portugal

Despite being ranked higher in the world at present, the Portuguese will start the campaign as second favourites for qualification although that could change after the European Championship next summer.

But this is unlikely, for though the Portuguese play a wonderfully energetic and flowing brand of football, they rarely distinguish themselves once they reach major finals.

Much was expected of them after they destroyed the Republic in Lisbon four years ago to reach Euro '96 but they could progress no further than the quarter-finals and despite having a young side which most observers felt would improve, they then failed to qualify for France '98.

They have made it to Euro 2000 by finishing as the best second-placed team in the group stages having performed very solidly over their 10 games.

They have gifted players in every department and Rui Costa, Fernando Couto and Joao Pinto have established considerable international reputations.

They also have the most remarkable underage structures with major championship successes at under-16, 17, 18 and 20 levels over the past 10 years. The investment has paid off but they will be going into these qualifiers looking to make a real impact on the world stage for the first time since finishing third in 1966. World ranking: 15.

Cyprus

Cyprus made a good start to the campaign but in the end their main achievement in the Euro 2000 qualifiers was to get Spanish coach Javier Clemente the sack by beating his all-star line-up 3-2 in Limassol 15 months back.

Their two Serbian players, Milenko Spoljaric and striker Sinisa Gogic, scored in that game and are decent players. But they are getting on, particularly Gogic who is 36, and they may not be so influential in this World Cup group.

Even with those two the Cypriots blew hot and cold. After their win over Spain they lost 3-0 at home to Austria which went a long way towards killing off their chances of taking second place in the group. In the end, after beating Israel at home they finished fourth of five, but only one point off the play-offs.

That represents a considerable improvement on their form prior to 1996, before which they had always finished bottom of whatever group they had been in. Under Georghiou Panicios they became a far more organised outfit but to date they remain more or less useless away from home with only one win (a 1-0 win over San Marino) during the most recent campaign.

World ranking: 58.

Estonia

Under Teitur Thordarson, the Estonians adopted a policy of playing as many games as they could to improve their co-ordination in competitive games and the upshot was that they were the busiest of any international outfit in the world over the past couple of seasons.

The policy paid some dividends with Estonia achieving third place in their European Championship group, a notable improvement on the fifth of six they managed in the run-up to France '98.

Having said that, however, it was a weak group and they finished well behind second-placed Scotland with whom they managed a 0-0 draw at home. In Edinburgh they performed more strongly, leading twice before losing 3-2.

On the friendly front there have been some mixed results. Last January they lost 7-0 to Israel and then gained a creditable 3-3 draw with Norway.

Of more interest, perhaps, is their performance in Larnaca which they visited in March when they beat the Cypriots 2-1 thanks to goals from Sergei Terehhov of Flora Talinn.

World ranking: 73.

Andorra

In their first international game, a little over three years ago, Andorra lost 6-1 at home to Estonia and there's little question of them aiming for anything more than a point or two from this, their second competitive campaign.

During their first, the recent European Championship group stages in which they lost all 10 games, the undoubted highlights for the minnows were the two meetings with world champions France. In St Denis, the part-timers held the home side to just two goals while in the return match they went desperately close to battling their way to a draw, Frank Leboeuf eventually securing victory for the French with a penalty just before the end.

For all their determination and enthusiasm, this team isn't even on a par with Malta and they really should not come close to giving the Republic as much trouble when struggling to win 3-2 in Valletta.

The player who stands out is goalkeeper Jesus Luis Alvarez Koldo who has performed well over the past couple of years but especially against the French in Barcelona - where the Irish may end up playing due to the fact that the Andorran national stadium holds only 800 people.

World ranking: 144.