Although Martin O’Neill will have a rather more direct route to France planned at this stage, his team’s chances of qualifying for the European Championships through the play-offs were dealt something of a blow over the weekend when Bosnia and Herzegovina replaced Israel as the third placed side in Group B thanks to their 2-0 victory over Wales in Zenica .
The Bosnians are significantly higher in the Uefa rankings (which are totally separate from the Fifa ones) than Israel and so the effect has been to knock Ireland down to fifth place in what would be the list of eight sides heading for the play-offs after one goes through automatically.
The situation is still potentially subject to considerable change with the qualifying spots in several groups still very much up for grabs. In the case of Group B for instance, Israel lost their grip on second spot due to a surprise home defeat by Cyprus, who could potentially now leap frog both of their rivals if they can beat Bosnia Herzegovina in Nicosia in the last round of matches. Still, in the event that Ireland fail to with beat Poland this evening, or get a draw in which four or more goals are scored, then they may now need a favour or two from elsewhere to be seeded in the play-offs.
One very clear possibility is that Croatia, a leading contender at present with Hungary to be the best of the third placed sides will, in fact, qualify as a second placed side as they play Malta in their last group game and so Norway, against whom they have the better head to head, will almost certainly have to beat Italy away to retain a top two spot in Group H.
The Norwegians ending up in the play-offs would be good for Ireland as they would, all other things being equal, put O’Neill’s men back amongst the sides on course to be seeded but other changes could reverse the switch with Albania, for instance, set to qualify automatically at the expense of Denmark from Group I if they can win in Armenia. The Albanians are below Ireland on the Uefa list while the Danes are above us.
Ukraine and Sweden are currently the other teams poised to be seeded while Slovenia and Turkey are on course to make the play-offs but be unseeded.
As things stand, it is also terribly tight in terms of the number of points that separate Hungary, Ireland and Norway in the Uefa list with movement in their relative placings just about possible it appears as a result of a combination of results that would still keep them all third in their respective groups.
All told, O’Neill would be best to avoid the hassle and just engineer another win.
