SOCCER/WORLD CUP PLAY-OFFS:HAVING LOST their battle with Fifa, Ireland still stand an outside chance of snatching a victory in the seedings war by grabbing a place amongst the stronger nations when the eight nations to play-off for a place at next summer's World Cup in South Africa are ranked in a couple of weeks' time. It would, however, require Giovanni Trapattoni's record as a rather lucky general over the course of this campaign to extend to results going his way in the final two rounds of qualifying games on the 10th and 14th of this month.
Despite saying earlier in the week that a decision on whether to seed for the European qualification play-offs would not be taken at the Fifa executive committee meeting in Rio de Janeiro, the organisation has now confirmed that seeding will apply.
The news is, on the face of it, a significant blow to Ireland’s hopes of qualification with the team, currently firmly on course to finish second in Group Eight behind Italy, now set, as things stand, to end up facing one of the world’s top 12 ranked sides in a two-legged play-off to be held on the 14th and 18th of November. Trapattoni’s reaction yesterday was somewhat defiant with the 70-year-old, who managed Italy at the 2002 World Cup and 2004 European Championships, insisting his current team has produced evidence over the last year or so of its ability to challenge good sides.
“We’re obviously concentrating on the games against Italy and Montenegro,” he said, “and we are not taking anything for granted, but being in a tough group, containing the world champions, Italy, we have shown we are more than capable of making life difficult for any of Europe’s big sides.”
As things stand, the Irish would certainly be one of the non-seeded sides when the draw for the play-offs takes place in Zurich on the 19th. France, Germany and Portugal are amongst the sides who could be seeded for the draw, something that just might, one suspects, have influenced Fifa’s decision to break with recent tradition and revert to the practice of seeding the play-off sides.
The FAI had been in regular contact with Fifa with regard to the issue during the last few months and while a spokesman for the organisation would only speculate yesterday that its international department had probably been “seeking clarification,” it seems likely a fair bit of canvassing went on behind the scenes too.
But Fifa had carefully reserved its position on how the play-offs would be handled and the course of action they have taken was always a distinct possibility, one that grew in likelihood as some of the nations with the most financial and political clout struggled to nail down automatic qualification.
The Organising Committee for next year’s tournament will also be keen to have the strongest line -up possible from Europe as it looks to sell its remaining tickets for games and things have been made that little bit tighter by the fact that there will be one less side from the continent at this tournament than at any of the last three.
In the circumstances then, there is little for the FAI to do but hope that (assuming they don’t snatch top spot from under the noses of the defending champions) Trapattoni’s side takes the couple of points they require from the Italy and Montenegro games to be assured of second place and, as even one would put them ahead of Norway whose group has been completed, in the table of runners -up, their place in the draw on Monday fortnight.
At that point, they could still end up as a seeded team although it will require some good fortune. If all of the groups finished as they currently stand, Ireland would, on the present world rankings, be the fifth-ranked of the eight nations going into the draw and would, therefore, miss out on a seeding.
Several of the groups, however, are still being hotly contested and in the event that Latvia overtook Greece to finish second in Group Two, Ireland would be bumped up to seed status as long as Latvia’s success wasn’t cancelled out by, amongst other more far-fetched possibilities, Portugal overhauling Sweden in Group One, the Czech Republic leapfrogging Slovenia in Group Three or Sweden finishing second but moving above Ireland in the World Ranking list to be published three days before the draw. The Swedes are currently three places and 20 points behind the Republic but made up 36 points on Trapattoni’s side in the most recently published table.
As for now, the eight teams will be drawn in groups of four on the 19th with a separate draw determining who is to play at home first in each of the two-legged ties.
RACE FOR PLACES
(World ranking)PWDLFAPts
1 Russia (6)760116418
2 France (10)73319812
3 Slovenia (54)73228411
4 Croatia (9)7322111211
5 Bosnia (46)631215710
6 Greece (12)63129610
7 Norway (43)82429710
8 Rep Ireland (38)62406410
9 Sweden (41)6231439
THE WINNERS of the nine European groups automatically qualify for the World Cup finals, with the eight best runners-up going through to the play-offs (played over two legs on November 14th and 18th) for the four remaining qualifying slots. Group Nine has five teams, one less than all the other groups, so when calculating the best runners-up, results from matches against bottom teams in Groups One to Eight will be discounted. The criteria used to determine the eight best runners-up are: (1) total points, (2) goal difference, (3) goals scored, (4) goals scored away from home, (5) disciplinary record (6) drawing of lots.
