Stoke's Glenn Whelan is fired up to help the Republic of Ireland qualify for the 2012 European Championships as group winners.
The influential midfielder enjoyed a run-out in the 2-0 friendly defeat against Brazil at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday and he is now looking forward to doing battle with the likes of Macedonia, Russia and World Cup qualifiers Slovenia for a place in Poland and Ukraine in two years' time.
Whelan wants to qualify automatically, whether it be as a group winner or as best runner-up from the nine groups, but he would not relish another play-off after the World Cup heart-break in France.
"It helps get the play-off game out of our system,' said Whelan. "Brazil are obviously a great side. They have won the most World Cups overall. It was a good performance from the lads and people will start forgetting about the France thing.
"Everyone wants to play against the best players in the world and [Kaka] is up there in the top three.
"For ourselves it was just a matter of getting another game in and moving on now to qualifying for 2012.
"We don't want to get in that situation again, as in the play-offs. We want to try to qualify by finishing top. Hopefully, we can do that. It's definitely a big thing about France, but we have tried to put that behind us."