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Seedings confirmed for World Cup qualifying draw

The Republic of Ireland will be in pot 3 for the World Cup qualifiers when the draw takes place i...
Phil Egan
Phil Egan

09.53 27 Nov 2020


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Seedings confirmed for World C...

Seedings confirmed for World Cup qualifying draw

Phil Egan
Phil Egan

09.53 27 Nov 2020


Share this article


The Republic of Ireland will be in pot 3 for the World Cup qualifiers when the draw takes place in Zurich on December 7th.

Stephen Kenny knew his side would be in with the third seeds after the recent international games against England, Wales and Bulgaria but UEFA has now confirmed all the seedings.

The Boys in Green will be in pot three on Monday week along with Russia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Norway, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, Greece and Finland.

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Top seeds Belgium will be joined in Pot 1 by the other top-placed European teams in the ranking: France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

Based on the rankings, the seedings will be allocated as follows:

Pot 1: Belgium, France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

Pot 2: Switzerland, Wales, Poland, Sweden, Austria, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Slovakia and Romania

Pot 3: Russia, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Czech Republic, Norway, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, Greece and Finland

Pot 4: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Israel, Belarus, Georgia and Luxembourg

Pot 5: Armenia, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia and Andorra

Pot 6: Malta, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar and San Marino.

The draw will take place in Zurich at 5pm on December 7th with 13 out of 55 UEFA member associations to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

The teams drawn will be allocated to a group in alphabetical order, from Group A to Group J (i.e. the first team drawn will be allocated to Group A, the second team to Group B and so forth).

When a draw constraint applies or is anticipated to apply, the team drawn will be allocated to the first available group in alphabetical order as indicated by the draw constraint programme.

As Pot 6 will only contain five teams, these teams will be drawn into the sixth position in groups F to J.

All teams within a group will play each other twice in a home-and-away format between March and November 2021.

The ten group winners will qualify directly for Qatar 2022, with the ten runners-up advancing to the playoffs.

Besides the ten runners-up from the group stage, the play-offs will also include the two best group winners from the UEFA Nations League 2020-2021 overall ranking that did not qualify directly for the FIFA World Cup 2022 and did not enter the play-offs as runners-up.

The 12 teams will be split into three play-off paths, which will feature single-leg knockout matches in March 2022 to determine the last three European nations to book a place in Qatar.


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