Quote Originally Posted by tetsujin1979 View Post
The group stage draw for the U17 World Cup is being held this Sunday, the 25th
https://inside.fifa.com/organisation...mblem-revealed


Ireland have been included in the fourth seeds, along with every other country who's never qualified. If you look at the teams in the same pot as us, it's actually not that bad - there are some teams in pots 2 and 3 I'd much rather face than the other teams in pot 4.
Interestingly, no group can contain two teams from the same confederation
Having a look at the teams in the other pots - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_F...ld_Cup#Seeding - there's a reasonable chance we could finish second or third, and qualify for the second round.
Honestly we could win the group if we were lucky:

1st seeds:

Brazil and Argentina should be a lot better than us
Mexico, Senegal and Japan might be slight favourites against us, but wouldn't guarantee it
USA, Mali and Paraguay I'd have us as slight favourites
Qatar I'd back us to beat

2nd seeds are about half teams at about our level: South Korea, Chile, Colombia, Morrocco and half weaker teams like New Zealand, Honduras, Burkina Faso, Venezuela, Uzbekistan

3rd seeds: Ivory Coast and Tunisia could trouble us - but most teams shouldn't (Tajikistan, Indonesia, New Caledonia, Canada, Haiti, South Africa, North Korea, Panama, Costa Rica)