New thread as the last thread seems to be broken.
Looks like pot 2 is Poland , Czech, Wales, slovakia
It was always going to be a long shot to get through the first game if we were at home or not. Yeah it's disappointing but I don't think we can complain given where we were a week a go.
It would have been easier for us just to win our group. We would have won the group had we taken care of business in Armenia and beaten Hungary at home. Was in our hands.
Ah well water under the bridge. We just have to give it a go.
We were already going to need to play out of our skins like this week home or away
Danes will be pot 1
We will probably be away to Wales. Detest them.
Not Denmark. Either Poland Wales Czechia or Slovakia away. Think that's certain now. Very tough. But we can win a one off game. If we win that, yeah Denmark Italy Sweden Turkey are possibilities. If we get through all this, we'll have earned it. Amazing how tough it is even with a bloated 48 teams in it. God be with the days only eight teams qualified for the Euro Finals.
Denmark aren’t going to drop 13 spots in the rankings from 1 loss. They will be in pot 1.
Poland, Wales, Czech Republic and Slovakia will be pot 2 and our potential opponents.
They’re our bogey team so it’s odds on.
No matter who we get we will be underdogs ,but if I had to pick 1 game I would tentatively hope for Slovakia.
Nope.
Pot 1 looks like some good teams ( on paper at least ) Italy, Turkey, Denmark and Ukraine, the North might have a chance v Ukraine but that's it.
I'd say we get Wales, and if we win, we get to host Sweden who stun Italy 1-0.
If we get them after winning our first match, maybe. We've played them 19 times in all games winning 5. We've tended to meet them when they're in the ascendancy. Mid eighties fabulous side whopped us 3-0 4-1 in WC qualifying. We got spanked in 2018 by Erikson. But loads of draws too.
I really don't want Poland. We have a poor record against them and on his night Lewandowski is still capable of going on a goal spree.
Czech Republic on the other hand came 2nd in what was a pretty weak group. I've watched very little of them tbh but some of their results don't look so impressive (losing to the Faroes away, and narrowly beating them at home with a late goal).
Having a fight with chatgpt to base everything on the expected rankings after tonight but eventually got this.
Projected Pots (based on provisional rankings after tonight’s results)
Pot 1 — top-4 seeded runners-up (ranked 1–4 of the 12 runners-up)
1. Italy — (highest provisional FIFA points among the runners-up).
2. Austria — (next highest provisional points).
3. Turkey (Türkiye) — (next).
4. Slovakia — (4th-highest among the runners-up in the provisional table).
Pot 2 — seeded runners-up (ranked 5–8)
5. Poland.
6. Ukraine.
7. Denmark — (after losing tonight they drop into the playoff pool but provisional points keep them inside the top-8 seeded bracket).
8. Czechia.
Pot 3 — remaining runners-up (ranked 9–12)
9. Republic of Ireland.
10. Albania.
11. Wales (finished 2nd in Group J tonight — but are lower in provisional points than the teams above).
12. Kosovo / Bosnia & H. (depending on the precise provisional points ordering between them on the live tracker; both are the lower-ranked runners-up candidates).
Pot 4 — Nations-League route (ranked 13–16; these are automatically the unseeded NL teams)
13. Romania (NL group-winner, did not finish top-2).
14. Sweden (NL group-winner, did not finish top-2).
15. Northern Ireland (NL group-winner, did not finish top-2).
16. North Macedonia (the final NL-slot because Wales finished 2nd — North Macedonia take the Nations-League place).
I did the draw on Chat GPT….. ;)
Randomly drawn:
Slovakia are the obvious one (very poor against NI in both games, however did beat Germany in first group game - Germany fecked that up though) but I'd take Wales as well.
I think Poland would be the worst.
Will UEFA use ChatGPT?
I hope not, AI is a mess of contradictions but just acts confidently enough to convince us
Austria are through automatically.
Probably. . . but it'll be FIFA doing the draw. ;)
I just saw if we lose our game we have to play the other losers in a friendly the same day as the final. However would have been home for the final has to host it
Saw that earlier. . . . That's just **** crazy. Just let the players go home ffs.
Grim game to be involved in
Agree how would ir also work for tickets aren't they played 4 days apart be crazy if we win either way I suppose
Probably makes ticketing easier tbh. Ireland will know Thursday if we're due to host the final in our playoff bracket. If we're at home it'll be pretty easy to issue tickets with the opponent tbc. Where there real scramble begins is if we're drawn away for the final and make it through the first leg.
Federations will have budgeted for income from two games in the March international window. Arranging a bilateral friendly at four days notice if a team gets eliminated in the first round would be nigh on impossible.
Your right tickets can be easy but here is the next problem lets say for argument sake we play Wales away great get the ferry or a plane to wales but lets say the final are away and our other 2 teams are poland or slovakia getting a plane will be expensive and horendous.
As for the friendly not that hard you have to plan for the game anyway so you have from November to March to get ready the only thing you don't know is the team. Yes for the awy team it is fustrating as you have no time to plan for that team and need to get flights but hey UEFA say we have to do it let them put on the flight
Honestly, if Ireland do manage to qualify, I'd say the very act of that would be the magic moments we want. Beating four good to great teams on the bounce would be an inmatched feat in modern times. Although the finals might be a bigger occasion, I don't think they could match that in terms of heroics.
Heimir is doing a great job of just keeping himself in the background and not making it all about himself while getting the job done.
Too many managers in the past wanted to be the center of attention.
How many times has his name been mentioned in last few pages???
Realistically, he's had his job saved by an unbelievable week of form from Troy Parrott. It's not that I don't think HH works hard and is an honest pro, but outside of Parrott, he was working with a rather limited team in the attacking sense and you cannot tactic around that except to try and not lose which isn't any good in a must-win game.
Looking back, ireland's slump in recent years pretty much overlaps directly with the loss of a proven goalscorer and the renewal of chances comes with the emergence of one.
