Republic of Ireland Under-21s will find out their opponents for the 2025 UEFA European Under-21s Championship Qualifiers this Thursday (February 2)

The draw will take place at 8am Irish time and can be viewed live here

For the first time in their history Ireland U-21s will be second seeds and are now ranked 18th in Europe. Jim Crawford’s team will be placed in Pot 2.

How the 2025 U21 EURO qualifying draw works

Hosts Slovakia qualify directly for the final tournament in summer 2025.

The teams are classified on the basis of the coefficient ranking system established according to UEFA regulations

2025 U21 EURO qualifying draw seeding pots

Pot 1: Spain, Portugal, Germany, France, Netherlands, England, Denmark, Italy, Romania

Pot 2: Croatia, Switzerland, Belgium, Czechia, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, Austria, Republic of Ireland

Pot 3: Norway, Greece, Iceland, Slovenia, Israel, Finland, Georgia, Serbia, Scotland

Pot 4: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Hungary, Türkiye, North Macedonia, Wales, Belarus, Northern Ireland, Albania

Pot 5: Kosovo, Montenegro, Moldova, Lithuania, Faroe Islands, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Latvia

Pot 6: Malta, Armenia, Luxembourg, Andorra, Estonia, Gibraltar, San Marino

The 52 teams are allocated into six pots as follows:

Pot 6: teams ranked 46 to 52 (7 balls)
Pot 5: teams ranked 37 to 45 (9 balls)
Pot 4: teams ranked 28 to 36 (9 balls)
Pot 3: teams ranked 19 to 27 (9 balls)
Pot 2: teams ranked 10 to 18 (9 balls)
Pot 1: teams ranked 1 to 9 (9 balls)

The teams will be drawn into seven groups of six teams and two groups of five teams.

The groups will be played between March 2023 and October 2024.

The nine group winners and the three best runners-up (not counting results against sixth-placed teams) will qualify directly for the final tournament in summer 2025.

The other six runners-up will play off over two legs for the remaining three finals berths in November 2024.