Republic of Ireland's opponents

A look at our opponents in the World Cup qualifying

Cyprus

World ranking: 65. European ranking: 36.

Recent form:Rather good by their standards, the last campaign yielding four wins, one against Ireland. They finished second last in Group D but look to have made progress with a string of decent performances at home. A draw with Germany was probably the highlight given it didn't involve widespread ineptitude on the part of the visitors.

World Cup pedigree: None at all. The Cypriots have never qualified for a major tournament and aren't going to start appearing at them any time soon, but they do now look capable of influencing which of the group's other countries get to go.

Record against Ireland: This is the fourth time in five qualifying tournaments the two countries have been drawn together and until recently the Republic enjoyed a 100 per cent record. There had, however, been one or two warnings that we could no longer bank on the games yielding maximum points even before the recent European Championship encounters. The 5-2 defeat in October of last year now ranks as Ireland's worst competitive result ever, while the 1-1 draw at home sealed Steve Staunton's fate.

Bulgaria

World ranking: 18. European ranking:14.

Recent form: For a second successive time, the Bulgarians finished third in their qualifying group, Romania and the Netherlands this time ensuring they would have the summer off. They had three managers over the course of a campaign in which they took four points from Romania but just one from the Dutch. Critically, though, it was their failure to beat Albania either home or away that cost them a place at Euro 2008.

World Cup pedigree:Well, it's better than Ireland's, with seven appearances at the tournament stage but just two progressions beyond the group stages. Comfortably their best performance was in 1994, when they beat Germany to make the semi-finals, only to be eliminated by . . . Italy.

Former international Dimitar Penev was the coach then and for the last few months he's been back in charge.

Record against Ireland: Five of the six competitive meetings between the two nations have gone the way of the home side. The exception was the World Cup qualifier in 1978 at Lansdowne Road, which ended without a goal.

Italy

World ranking: 3. European ranking: 1.

Recent form:Pretty good. Since winning the game's biggest prize for the fourth time the Azzurri have come solidly through their European Championship qualifying campaign.

Roberto Donadoni's side did slip up against Lithuania in Naples, the game ending in a draw, while they took just one point from six against France, but they were consistently strong elsewhere and showed great character in Glasgow to secure qualification, going on to top the group with 29 points from 12 games.

World Cup pedigree: Outstanding. Four-times winners, they have been at every finals tournament apart from 1930 (didn't enter) and 1958 (failed to qualify). The current squad is essentially the same one that triumphed in Germany.

Record against Ireland:The two nations have met only twice in qualifying games - both matches took place in 1972 - and Italy won on each occasion. Italy have done well in the couple of friendly encounters too, but honours are even at finals tournaments, the Italians winning 1-0 at the quarter-final stage of Italia 90 but going down to Ray Houghton's goal at the Giants Stadium four years later.

Georgia

World ranking: 77. European ranking: 36.

Recent form: This draw means a swift reunion for the Georgians with Italy after the countries came up against each other in the Euro 2008 group stages.

The world champions won both games but the Georgians did not disgrace themselves by any means.

The highest-ranked of the fifth seeds, they beat Scotland 2-0 in Tbilisi and held the Ukraine to a 1-1 draw there.

Their German coach, Klaus Toppmöller, used the campaign to bring through many young and talented players, several teenagers doing well in recent games.

World Cup pedigree: In their three previous World Cup campaigns, the Georgians have never come close to qualifying.

Record against Ireland:The countries have met just twice, during the Euro 2004 European Championship qualifying campaign, the Irish winning on both occasions. The game in Dublin yielded a fairly comfortable 2-0 win for the Republic but it took a late Gary Doherty goal to bag the extra points in Tbilisi and it appears to have become a harder place to visit since then.

Montenegro

World ranking: 172. European ranking:50.

Recent form: Not much to go on really, the country only having split from Serbia in footballing terms this past year. They have yet to play a competitive game and their friendly results have been a mixed bag.

They contributed some excellent players to the Yugoslav national side over the years, however, and their place among the bottom group of seeds is seriously misleading. On paper only Andorra, the Faroe Islands and San Marino are worse, but Montenegro's ranking is so low because new nations start at the bottom. Many higher-ranked teams don't have players of the quality of Branko Boskovic, Slobodan Lakicevic or Stefan Nenadovic, who are at Rapid Vienna, Bayer Leverkusen and Inter Milan respectively.

World Cup pedigree: None in their own right but many of the players who represented Yugoslavia or Serbia and Montenegro at previous tournaments, including Predrag Mijatovic and Dejan Savicevic, were from the now independent state.

Record against Ireland:None.