England to tackle Republic of Ireland in Nations League group stage

England and the Republic of Ireland will meet competitively for the first time since 1991 in the next edition of the Nations League.

The English and the Republic are also up against Euro 2004 winners Greece and Finland in Group B2. They avoided a long trip to Kazakhstan under UEFA’s excessive travel restriction rules, with the former Soviet republic placed in Group B3 instead.

The last competitive encounter between England and the Republic was a Euro 92 qualifier at Wembley, where a Niall Quinn goal cancelled out Lee Dixon’s opener. A friendly match in 1995 at Lansdowne Road had to be abandoned due to crowd trouble, and the teams’ most recent meeting was a November 2020 friendly.

Wales will be up against Iceland, Montenegro and Turkey in Group B4.

Steve Clarke’s Scotland are up against Croatia, Portugal and Poland in Group A1.

Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland were drawn in Group C3, where they will take on Luxembourg, Bulgaria and Belarus.

The league phase will be played between September and October before League A quarter-finals and promotion/relegation play-offs take place in March 2025.

Single-leg semis and a final will be played in June 2025.

England manager Gareth Southgate says the aim for his side is to gain promotion back into League A.

Reacting to the draw, he told Sky Sports: “There’s some teams we haven’t played for a while, there’s going to be some difficult games for us.

“I think everybody in England will think it was a big disappointment to drop down to League B but you still have difficult games.

“Obviously our objective will be we have to try to win the group to get back up into League A.”

Southgate admitted England have had mixed experiences in the Nations League in previous years.

He added: “We’ve had varied experiences. The first time we finished third, the second two have been complicated for us, in all three versions we’ve used it to look at new players.

“Of course you have to balance looking at new players with winning games and we didn’t manage to do that last time.

“The competition pairs the best with the best and my impressions of it have been really good.

“Unfortunately the second one reminds me of Covid and the third one we didn’t play well and it was the build-up to a World Cup, so that was complicated for us.”

Prior to the Nations League kicking off, this year’s European Championship will take place in Germany over the summer.

England were runners-up at Euro 2020 and Southgate insists his focus remains on this year’s tournament, adding he is “looking forward” to the competition.

“Yes, our entire focus is on (the Euros),” he told Sky Sports.

“I know we’re here for a draw for a different competition but all we’re thinking about is our preparation for Germany and we’re really looking forward to the competition.

“We finished runners-up last time, we’ve been ranked in the top five in the world for four or five years so we know we have a good team. But we know in tournaments that on one day there are lots of good teams in Europe who can win matches against each other, there are also some other strong squads.

“We’re very pleased with our team. We have confidence in what we’ve done over the last six or seven years but you have to go and deliver that when it really counts.”