Soccer: Uefa confirmed the draw for the 2011 European Under-21 Championships will take place in Aarhus, Denmark on February 4th with Don Givens' Republic of Ireland side drawn in Pot D.

Denmark qualify automatically for the finals as hosts while the remaining 52 teams will be drawn into ten groups - eight with five teams and two with six.

Nations have been allocated to five draw pots in accordance with their ranking. Republic of Ireland are in Pot D alongside Poland, Latvia, Slovakia, Albania, FYR Macedonia, Iceland, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro.

"We will be hoping for a good draw. The last draw placed us in a particularly difficult group, facing England, Portugal, Bulgaria and Montenegro, so hopefully we can get a better draw this time," said Givens.

"Our performances were better than our results in the last qualifying campaign, which was disappointing but I was still happy with a lot of individual performances.

"Considering you have to win the group to qualify for the tournament, it is always going to be difficult given that we are in the fourth pot, but we will give it our best shot. We have a very good team and in our last few games they drew away to both Portugal and Austria, two very good teams, so that shows the potential we have."

The opening matches of the qualifying campaign will take place on the weekend of March 29th, concluding with the final matches on September 7th, 2010.

In the meantime Ireland will play two friendly matches in the build-up to the qualifying campaign.

Germany will travel to Cork to face Givens' side on February 10th at Turner's Cross, with Waterford's RSC hosting a friendly against Spain on March 27th.

Both Germany and Spain have been placed in the top seeded group for the qualifying campaign, which should ensure that the two friendly matches give Ireland team a tough test and good indicator ahead of the qualifying campaign.

"It's great for us to be playing countries such as Germany and Spain," added the manager. "These are the sort of teams you want to be playing because it will be a real test for the players.

"These games should also be very attractive to supporters and hopefully Turner's Cross on February 10th and the RSC on March 27th will both be packed."

Uefa European Under-21 Championship qualifying draw:

Pot A:
Spain, England, Italy, Germany, Serbia, France, Austria, Turkey, Israel, Russia

Pot B:
Belarus, Czech Republic, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Wales, Switzerland, Ukraine, Romania, Croatia

Pot C:
Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, Hungary, Greece, Norway, Moldova, Armenia, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland

Pot D:
Poland, Latvia, Slovakia, Albania, FYR Macedonia, Iceland, Slovenia, Republic of Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro

Pot E:
Cyprus, Georgia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Andorra, Faroe Islands, Estonia, Malta, San Marino, Azerbaijan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg

Upcoming Republic of Ireland Under-21 friendly fixtures:

10/02/09: Republic of Ireland v Germany
(Turner's Cross, Cork)

27/03/09: Republic of Ireland v Spain
(RSC, Waterford)