England face Wales and Northern Ireland

[Ref]

Englands group looks fairly easy.

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England will meet both Wales and Northern Ireland in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers.
The three home nations were drawn together in Group 6 and will face each other home and away.

Austria, Poland and Azerbaijan are the other opponents in the six-team group in Friday's draw in Frankfurt.

England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson was delighted to have avoided a potential meeting with the Dutch, but denied they had been given an easy passage through to the finals.

"I am very glad that we avoided Holland," he said. "I think England have played against Poland many times in these circumstances and have done well.

Every nation wants to beat England, but Wales and Northern Ireland will want that even more

Terry Butcher
Butcher's verdict
"I think it is a rather good draw - interesting. But it's absolutely not easy.

"Wales did very well in qualification for Euro 2004, they could have won the group. It will not be easy at all.

"I am sure Wales want to beat England at any cost but we want the same.

"Poland always have good football players and it's a good team. Northern Ireland and Wales are interesting, very interesting."

Wales boss Mark Hughes said: "It's a great draw for us. When the ball came out and we were paired with England I honestly thought 'this is fantastic'.

"It's been 20 years since England and Wales played. I remember it well because I scored the winning goal.

"It's going to be tough of course. England are one of the top teams in the world at the moment, but the disappointment of the European campaign also proved to us that we can compete at the highest level."

Irish Football Association president Jim Boyce described the draw as a "dream come true".

He added: "I have been waiting a long time to get a British Championship resurrected. Don't forget we are the holders."

[Footie_Fan]

Handy group for England.

[yur man]

they shud walk it. will they play god save mrs windsor twice at the ni v england games?

or will the teams take it in turn to belt it out

[Jon'o]

im sure england will try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As for NI v England should be funny guess ill root for wales to sod things up for both of them.

I had a nasty feeling we would be stuck in there. I think our group is as good as we could get i think that with some luck and the the right people being up for it we could give france a run for it.