Mick McCarthy is keeping his preferences to himself as he awaits the draw for the four World Cup play-off ties for second placed teams, in Switzerland this afternoon.
A 1-1 draw with Romania at Lansdowne Road on Saturday confirmed the Republic of Ireland's place among the eight countries who will compete for the remaining four European places in the finals in France next summer.
Now together with Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia, they go into the draw which takes place at FIFA headquarters in Zurich.
"When you get to this stage, there are no bad teams left in the competition, only some better than others," says McCarthy. "Whoever we get, we're going to have to produce our best performances of the year to survive and to that extent, there are a couple of big challenges ahead of us."
Some of the favoured options were lost when England's scoreless draw with Italy in Rome, gave them automatic entry to the finals as Group Two winners and Scotland qualified from Group Five as the best second-placed team.
England's achievement in grinding out their best result in years in a game, watched on television by many of the Irish players on Saturday evening, eliminates the possibility of a tie which would have posed huge security problems.
Conversely, it opens up the possibility of Ireland meeting Italy for the first time since Ray Houghton's goal gave Jack Charlton' team a celebrated win in the 1994 World Cup finals in New Jersey.
The Republic of Ireland and Scotland have not met in World Cup competition for 36 years and the Scots made certain that it will not happen in the play-offs when beating Latvia 2-0 at Celtic Park, to finish second to the table-toppers, Austria.
Ironically, Russia provided the opposition in McCarthy's first game in charge of the Ireland team, winning 2-0 at Lansdowne Road in March of last year and later Croatia drew 2-2 at the same venue on their way to the European championship finals.
A meeting with Ukraine would break new ground for the Irish but Yugoslavia have been twice beaten in Dublin, the last occasion being in 1988 when McCarthy and Kevin Moran scored in a 2-0 success.
Houghton and David Kelly are the only survivors in the present squad from that successful team. Coincidentally, Tony Cascarino returned after a two-year absence for the next game against Poland to score the first of the 19 goals which have now taken him to within one of Frank Stapleton's all-time Ireland record.
Stapleton was among the attendance at Saturday's game and said it was now only a matter of time before Cascarino takes his record. "Scoring is as much about selfbelief as anything and Tony is playing with sufficient confidence just now to go on and help himself to more goals," he said.
Contrary to earlier suggestions that the draw would be structured, a FIFA spokesman said yesterday that the names of all countries will go into a drum "without any preconceived arrangements".
The exception to that is Ireland's agreement with the parent body for a 24-hour postponement if they are drawn at home in the second leg game, scheduled for November 15th - the date of Ireland's rugby game with the All Blacks at Lansdowne.
Bernard O'Byrne, the FAI's Chief Executive, said that this decision was copper-fastened but admitted that, in company with Pat Quigley, the FAI President, and Brendan Menton, the Association's treasurer, there is still some difficult talking to be done.
The Irish delegation must persuade FIFA to suspend their ban on standing spectators at competitive games on a one-off basis to avoid a situation in which an attendance ceiling of just 23,000, may have to be imposed for the play off.
"We have not as yet, broached the subject with FIFA, pending the outcome of the draw but if it becomes necessary to do so, I would be optimistic of their co-operation," said O'Byrne.
