Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy thinks his successor Stephen Kenny will be pleased by their draw for the Nations League.
Ireland will face Bulgaria, Finland, and Wales in the group stages of the tournament - which gets underway in September.
And McCarthy feels the team should be going into the competition with hopes of reaching the knockout stages:
"It could have been a lot worse, it could have been Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Hungary," he told Sky Sports.
"I'm speaking as someone who's not going to be involved in this, it'll be Stephen Kenny.
"I think if Stephen is sat at home, he'd be delighted with it because it's a group they can win."
McCarthy says he's a fac of the Nations League following his work as an anaylst during the first edition of the tournament:
"I thought it was brilliant the last time it was played. I set off that very cynical ex-footballer thinking that they were just going to be glorified friendlies and it turned out it was anything but.
"The games England played against Spain and Croatia were amazing games, I thought Holland and Germany, the competition in that group was brilliant.
"Sadly we didn't do very well in it, we were relegated from it, but overall I thought the competition was a big hit. I was doing the games for Virgin TV in Ireland, and I thought they were great games, much better than friendlies."
