Ireland are third seed with Scotland and Northern Ireland
Welcome to a new World Cup qualifying format but a similarly difficult outlook for Ireland.
Not since the draw for the 2006 World Cup have Ireland been higher than third seeds.
That group pitted Brian Kerr’s team against the aristocrats of France but the disappointment by the end came from allowing third and fourth seeds Switzerland and Israel finish above them.
Every draw since has pitted Ireland into the third – they were fourth in the 2018 version – and while the likelihood of a four-team group is a novelty, the route to America, Canada and Mexico in 2026 is arduous.
For starters, despite the expanded 48-team showpiece offering 16 instead of the previous 13 places for European teams, only the winners across the 12 groups are guaranteed direct tickets.
The remaining four are to be derived through a convoluted playoff system, in which the runners-up are joined by four teams from the Nations League series recently completed to generate four separate semi-final and final paths.
Such is Uefa’s desire to trumpet the Nations League, a concept since 2018 replacing friendlies, that the playoffs in March and June influence the groups.
Ireland are one those, on account of facing Bulgaria over two legs to preserve their League B status for the next cycle.
It had thus been interpreted by the FAI – including manager Heimir Hallgrimsson – that a four-team pool, replete with a start date of the September window, was guaranteed for Ireland.
Tinkering of the regulations by Uefa and Fifa in recent weeks has, however, changed the limitations on Ireland being drawn against certain opponents from zero to unlikely.
For example, a reunion with their last adversaries, England, is unlikely, though not impossible. That can only occur if England are drawn into a five team pool and then pooled with a team from the second seeds not involved in the playoffs, such as Wales.
Overall, it appears Ireland’s prospects of being in a five team group, with England or Switzerland, reside at six percent.
Hallgrimsson isn’t travelling to the draw in Zurich for the 11am ceremony, preferring to stay back at the FAI’s base in Abbotstown. Last time he met the press there, a tutorial on Wyscout was supplied and researching next year’s opponents will probably entail an either/or situation. The League A playoffs won’t conclude until June but the four teams who win the quarter-finals in March must each go into one of the four-team groups (Groups A-F).
As this draw occurs ahead of those games, the quarter-finalists will be drawn as placeholders.
As an example, the winner of France v Croatia will go in one group, with the loser going in another.
A maximum of one losing Nations League quarter-finalist or one Nations League promotion-relegation play-off team can go into any single group.
Teams drawn in groups of five will begin qualifying in March and teams drawn in groups of four start their campaigns in September. All groups conclude in November 2025. Hallgrimsson’s preference is a smaller group, affording double-header friendlies in both March and June to intensify his finetuning of a squad he first met three months ago.
All told, one might require an applied maths degree to parse the abundance of criteria for this draw.
Add in the fact that Ireland are debarred from facing Kazakhstan on account of excessive travel and it could be a gruelling exercise to place all 54 participants in the correct pools. Uefa’s draw guru, Italian Giorgio Marchetti, will be pulled crooked from the plethora of adjustments, as the European body are billing them.
Uefa are the last of the confederations to conduct their draw, and were slow too in releasing the procedures around it. Their diktat, released on the eve of the draw, details: “As a rule, and for each pot, the teams drawn are allocated in ascending alphabetical order from Group A to Group L.
“Since put five only contains six teams, these teams are drawn into the fifth positions in groups G to L.
“When a draw condition applies or is anticipated to apply, the team drawn is allocated to the next available group.” That much we now know. Ireland’s options aren’t as narrow as originally perceived and fans planning their trips for 2025 will likely be waiting on at least one final to discover the final itinerary. They can’t blame the day and date if it transpires into another group of death.
France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Croatia, England, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria.
Ukraine, Turkiye, Sweden, Wales, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Norway, Czechia.
Scotland, Slovenia, Ireland, Albania, Finland, Georgia, North Macedonia, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Israel.
Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Belarus, Armenia, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Faroe Islands, Lithuania.
Moldova, Malta, Andorra, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, San Marino.
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