Irish hopes of competing for the first time ever at a Uefa under-21 championship finals tournament took something of a battering yesterday in Stockholm where the Republic were drawn alongside England in the toughest of 10 qualification groups for the 2009 event.

The group in which the Irish will compete is the only one to contain two of the eight teams set to compete in the Netherlands for the 2007 title, with first seeds Portugal rivalling England for the tag of favourites to progress from the five-team mini-league.

Also included in the group are Bulgaria and Montenegro with the latter making their competitive debut in international competition after recently gaining full membership of European Football's umbrella organisation.

The teams will play each other on a home and away basis over a 15-month period starting in June of this year. The top team in each group as well as the four best runners-up will progress to a play-off round with the seven winners of those games joining hosts Sweden in the finals.

Given the turnover of players at this age level the seedings are not an entirely reliable indication of a country's prospects but, as Don Givens readily admits, there is every reason to believe that his players will have their work cut out for them if they are to improve on the Republic's disappointing competitive record at this level.

"This is as difficult a group as they come," he said after assessing his team's task yesterday. "Portugal, have a tremendous track record at underage level and Bulgaria are traditionally strong. It is the first time that Montenegro have entered the competition and that's the only reason they are bottom seeds. We know they have good players and they could be the surprise packet in the group. Clearly England is the big draw for us, though," Givens continued. "They bring an enormous interest to the group because of the sporting rivalry between Ireland and England."

The Ireland manager has some highly regarded players available to him at present and he will resume his preparations for the qualifiers later this month when his 20-man squad travel to defend the Madeira tournament trophy they won last February.

Anthony Stokes of Sunderland, Darren Randolph of Charlton, Sheffield United's Stephen Quinn and Darron Gibson, the Manchester United midfielder currently on loan at Royal Antwerp, all of whom were in San Marino with the senior squad last week when Stokes was a second-half substitute, are amongst those included in Givens' latest squad.

Also lined up to travel at this stage are Celtic's Darren O'Dea, Billy Clarke of Ipswich and James O'Brien who has impressed since arriving on loan at Dunfermline from Celtic. The Irish will play three matches in Madeira, against Slovakia (February 27th), Madeira (February 28th ) and Portugal (March 2nd).

"The Madeira tournament is an ideal build-up to the qualification matches ahead of us later in the year," said Givens. "We have played in the tournament in recent years and aside from our success in winning the trophy twice, quite often players have used this as their platform to gain promotion to the senior squad."

The FAI, meanwhile, have officially launched a new under-21 Futsal (the officially recognised version of the indoor five-a-side game) league comprised of eight sides representing League of Ireland clubs. Bohemians, Bray Wanderers, Drogheda United, Dundalk, Monaghan United, Shamrock Rovers, St Patrick's Athletic and UCD will all compete in the competition which will be staged over seven Saturdays during the next three months. The first programme of matches will take place this Saturday at the National Basketball Arena where Bohemians and Bray will get things under way at noon.

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND UNDER-21 SQUAD (for Madeira tournament): Randolph (Charlton Ath), Supple (Ipswich Town), Kane (Blackburn Rovers), O'Cearuill (Brighton), O'Dea (Celtic), Powell (Bohemians), O'Halloran (Aston Villa), O'Leary (Kilmarnock), Synnott (Ipswich), O'Brien (Dunfermline), Gibson (Royal Antwerp), Quinn (Sheffield Utd), Garvan (Ipswich), Morris (Scunthorpe Utd), Kelly (Bohemians), McCann (Burnley), Stokes (Sunderland), Clarke (Ipswich), Rooney (Stoke City), Hayes (Milton Keynes Dons).