An emerging football force: A look at Bosnia and Herzegovina

Fifa ranking: 30.

Journey to the play-offs: Mehmed Bazdarevic's side finished third in Group B, four points behind Wales and six points behind group winners Belgium. Despite being the top seed they got off to a poor start, losing 2-0 to Cyprus. After a second loss, this time to Israel, manager Safet Susic was sacked and replaced with Bazdarevic. The 55-year-old's impact was immediate, winning five of his first seven matches, including a 2-0 win over Wales, to guide Bosnia and Herzegovina to the play-offs.

Key player: Zmajevi (The Dragons) have a number of players who fans of European football will recognise (including Asmir Begovic, Emir Spahic and Miralem Pjanic) but their key player and captain is undoubtedly Edin Dzeko. The former Manchester City striker, currently at Roma, is his country's top scorer with 44 goals in just 74 appearances. Indeed Dzeko was fourth in the list of top scorers during the qualifying group stages, netting seven times.

History: Bosnia and Herzegovina are one of the many teams in eastern Europe whos' footballing history has been heavily affected by the separation of Yugoslavia. The country didn't play their first match as an independent nation until November 1995 when they lost 2-0 to Albania in a friendly played in Tirana. It was a slow and largely chaotic beginning to life as an independent national football team as can be seen in the jerseys the players wore in that first game – the shirts had been bought in a Zagreb sports shop just hours before kick-off.

It took the Balkan country a number of years to emerge from the bloodshed and war that shadowed their nation for for so long and they didn’t enter the qualifying stage of a major tournament until 1996 when they were grouped with Greece, Denmark, Croatia and Slovenia as they looked to book a place at the 1998 World Cup in France.

It was not to be however and they would miss out on the next three World Cups and four European Championships before finally breaking their major championship duck to defy the odds and make it to last year’s World Cup in Brazil.

To put it into context – the poorest country in Europe at the time, with a population of less than four million, a terrible domestic league and infrastructure still recovering from one of the bloodiest wars in history, had qualified for the World Cup by winning every match, bar one.

50,000 people greeted the team back on the streets of Sarajevo in what was one of the few moments the small country had to celebrate since independence.

Just 18 years after fielding a team kitted out in jerseys bought from a Serbian sports shop, Bosnia and Herzegovina were going to the World Cup.

And, with so many players playing in Europe’s top leagues, they were going to Brazil with high expectations.

Unfortunately things didn’t quite go to plan.

Despite being drawn into a favourable group with Argentina, Nigeria and Iran they failed to make the last 16, losing to the South Americans and the Africans before recording their one win against Iran.

But by following that disappointment up with third place in their Euro 2016 qualifying group Bosnia and Herzegovina are continuing to prove themselves as a real emerging force in European football.

Stadium: Mehmed Bazdarevic's team occasionaly play home games at the Asim Ferhatovic Hase Stadium in Sarajevo but played all of their home Euro 2016 qualifiers in the Bilino Polje stadium in Zenica. It's all but certain that that is where they will clash with Ireland for the opening leg on Friday November 13th. The ground holds just 13,632 spectators meaning that the FAI will receive an allocation of just 700 or so tickets. That, along with the difficulty in getting to Bosnia and securing accommodation, will mean that the contingent of travelling Irish fans will be heavily depleted.

Supporters: Eastern European football fans have a reputation for noise, colour and intimidating atmospheres and Bosnians are no different. That much was clear to anyone watching Wales' recent visit to Zenica. In a home game against Norway in 2007 fans caused an hour-long delay to the game after showering the pitch with flares in protest at alledged corruption in the Bosnian FA.

Record against Ireland: Ireland have played Bosnia and Herzegovina just once before. That game was a friendly prior to Euro 2012 in which Ireland won 1-0 thanks to a Shane Long strike.