EURO 2004: Mick McCarthy hopes to repeat the formula that worked so well for the Republic of Ireland in their recent World Cup campaign by playing his side's strongest rivals away in September's opening game of the Euro 2004 qualifiers, the groups for which will be drawn at 11 a.m this morning in Porto (live on Eurosport).

Though the Irish are top seeds in the 10-group, 50-nation draw, McCarthy insists little has changed from last time around with the presence of teams like England, the Netherlands and Croatia among the second seeds ensuring the prospect of a tightly-contested group.

But his hope is that whoever Ireland's main rivals are after this morning's ceremony, they will accept a proposal from the FAI to play hosts to the Irish in the opening round of games when Lansdowne Road will be unavailable because of work being carried out to improve the pitch.

"As a player I did feel knackered after Euro'88," he said acknowledging the fact his players will be starting the new campaign just a matter of weeks after returning from the World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea.

"That September I felt really tired because I had only one week's holidays but we can overcome that. I would sooner take the next strongest team in our group away from home in our first game," he observed. "It would suit me because if we get beaten there my attitude is we can beat them at home and cancel that out." McCarthy admitted that on this occasion he would take a similar sort of combination to the one he was handed two years ago in Asia.

"We had two fantastic teams in Portugal and Holland who created a lot of excitement and put a lot of pressure on us, " he said. "We also had Cyprus, who were a potential banana skin but we had good away trips to there, Estonia and Andorra. I don't want to sound like a travel agent but they were three enjoyable, uncomplicated trips."

Asked about the rivals that might be thrown up from the second pot of seeds, he said he would be delighted to get England despite the fact he realises a huge amount of the goodwill he currently enjoys there might suddenly start to evaporate. "Attitudes would change very quickly but getting England wouldn't faze me. We would have two fantastic games."

After yesterday's seminar on the ticketing arrangements for the forthcoming World Cup finals, meanwhile, FAI general secretary Brendan Menton came away impressed with FIFA's plans and said he was confident the scheme would go off without difficulties.

Given the projected level of demand from Irish supporters and reports from the organisers that a considerable number of applications from Ireland have already been received via the federation's website, Menton said he is confident all applications for tickets made to Merrion Square, and accompanied by payment, will be successful.

"The expectation is there will be other opportunities to buy tickets out at the championships as well as late applications on the web but what I would say now is if people want to be guaranteed of tickets for all of Ireland's games then it's up to them, they have to act now."

Under the scheme supporters can apply for "team specific" tickets right up until the final of the tournament. Any or all of Ireland's three group games and potential knockout matches can be selected as long as payment is made in advance. In the event Ireland don't reach a particular stage for which tickets have been bought, the purchase price will be refunded less a $10 service charge.

The association will receive eight per cent of the seats for each of the three first-round games in addition to which unclaimed seats by opponents will be added to the Irish allocation. Menton insists only the German match, for which 3,200 seats will be guaranteed, might present a problem.

In the draws for the next European under-age championships, the Irish under-17s were handed a draw that even McCarthy might have objected to. The Irish will face Germany, France and Slovenia for one of two places in the next group stages of the qualifying competition. Under the new format for the tournaments the Irish under-19s were seeded and so only become involved at the second stage.