Playoffs

[Citymark]

If Ireland finish second (touch wood!) in their group they will face a play off with a team from the Asian Qualifiying group. Possible opponents include China, Iran and Thailand!

[James]

The draw to decide which qualifying groups will be paired together took place at FIFA's headquarters in Zurich on Friday morning. The results were:
2nd placed Group 6(Croatia/Scotland) V 2nd placed Group 3(Bulgaria/Czech)
2nd placed Group 5(Belarus/Ukraine) V 2nd placed Group 9 (England)
2nd placed Group 7 (Austria/Isreal)V 2nd placed Group 4(Turkey/Slovakia)
2nd placed Group 1(Slovenia/Switzerland) V 2nd placed Group 8.(Romania)

The runner-up in Group 2 (Ireland/Holland) will play off against a team from the Asian confederation AFC.

UEFA has announced November dates for the matches.


There is a play off between the 2 second place teams from the 2 asian groups & we play the winners.
Currently Iran & Iraq are joint 2nd in Grp 1 while UAE & Uzbekistan are joint 2nd in Grp 2

[James]

oh yea and we have no home venue for the game as Lansdowne is being used to complete the 6 nations matches that were called off due to F&M

[Schumi]

Isn't there a rugby match on that weekend?

[James]

james

and we have no home venue for the game as Lansdowne is being used to complete the 6 nations matches

Schumi

isnt there a rugby match on that weekend

hmmm what are they teaching you up there in UCD.
Isnt that what i already said.

[Dodge]

If we finish second in the group we face the 3rd place team in Asia.

The draw was made this morning.

We could play Iran, Saudi Arabia, China among others

The home leg is on November 10th and the away leg is on the 15th

[Schumi]

I was distracted by work (I know) and only posted that about 5-10 minutes after clicking on reply.

[James]

Schumi in "distracted by work shocker" !
you should get your priorities right man and give up that work lark and go full-time professional on the web like me

[Brine]

You see, these are the advantages you get when you are drawn in a group with 2 Nike teams! Good ol' corrupt FIFA.

[Neil]

Good point Brine. It's all clear now.

Whatever now though, a draw will be enough tomorrow to get us through to the finals next summer.

[Martystapo]

Great news but where will that home game be played?

This is the stroke of luck we need . It will still be a draw tommorrow but a word of caution. Ye all rem France 98 playoff between the Auzzies and Iran and you saw what happened. Aussies thought they had to turn up to win.

[Xlex]

A nice trip to Bangkok for Martystapo

[Schumi]

Originally posted by Martystapo
Ye all rem France 98 playoff between the Auzzies and Iran and you saw what happened. Aussies thought they had to turn up to win.

Yes but Australia are $hit.

[Martystapo]

Mind you it is a bad idea having this draw. I reckon Mc Carthy will play for the draw which will result in losing. Rem Croatia?

[Schumi]

How does this draw change that? He would still have played for a draw to get a play-off. Let's be realistic, we can't win the group so a draw is as good as win.

[pete]

Obviously getting ahead of ourselves a bit but with the 1st leg of the playoff scheduled for 10th Nov (Ireland Rugby team scheduled to play Samoa) we could face the ultimate national nightmare of playingt he game in Old Trafford or Anfield. Wouls be so sickening if happened.
Could be possible alternative of moving the rugby to limerick or belfast as wouldn't be huge crowd at anyway & the rugger buggers could get extra cash cos of the sold out FAI game?

Possible playoff opponents would be from; Iran, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, China, UAE.

BTW i'm not sure if thsoe playoffs HAVE TO BE played on the allocated dates as FIFA just says they have to be played before the 25th of november or something.

Ireland could get a draw tomorrow but can't see it happening unless we can snatch a goal from somewhere.

[James]

lansdowne is available after all. I hear the rugby game is on in Limerick

[Schumi]

All we have to worry about now is getting there.

[Martystapo]

Originally posted by Schumi
How does this draw change that? He would still have played for a draw to get a play-off. Let's be realistic, we can't win the group so a draw is as good as win.

Because the Irish will resign themselves to the playoffs considering the sort of opposition they will be facing over there in Asia. If that had not had happened we would have been harpin on about our playoff misery and how unlucky we were. I just think that we might play for the draw instead of playing for the win which is highly dangerous as it happened in the past against the Croats.

[gypsydownunder]

To the guy above who said that the Aussies lost to Iran because they are ****?... well I don't think so.

I feel I can comment on this one as I perhaps have the unique position of being in Brussels for our 2-1 defeat and then a week later, I was in Melbourne (with 94,999 others) for the Australia 2-2 draw with Iran, which meant Iran went through on away goals.

Australia are NOT **** and were perhaps the unluckiest of non-qualifiers for the last WC. There were 2-0 up in Melbourne, conceded a jammy deflected goal, then play was interupted when a "protester" invaded the pitch and tore down one of the goalnets, leading to about an 8 mins delay. Venables made some crazy substitutions and Iran scored one of the goals of the year. Those are the breaks.

Australia have improved steadily ever since and I think Viduka and Kewell are a handy forward line. They've beaten France and Brazil in the recent Confed Cup in Japan.

Anyway the real point is this - we must be very careful with the Asian team. Mainly because of... The Weather. Yes do we all remember playing the Mexicans in the midday Florida heat. Well that's the sort of weather they are used to every day in Tehran, Bagdad or Riyadh. Except the humidity is even worse

So despite the great result against the Tulips, let's not get too carried away yet with the Sushi order.