ireland 2022 world cup qualifying campaign

[steve sanders]

Draw is on 7th December at 5pm.

Pot 1: Belgium, France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Croatia, Germany, Netherlands
Pot 2: Switzerland, Poland, Sweden, Wales, Austria, Ukraine, Turkey, Serbia, Slovakia, Romania
Pot 3: Russia, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Hungary, Czech Republic, Scotland, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Finland, Greece
Pot 4: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Israel, Georgia, Luxembourg
Pot 5: Armenia, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia, Andorra
Pot 6: Moldova, Malta, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar, San Marino

you'd be haunted to get andorra and san marino.

not much between pots 2 and 3, though you'd want to avoid the swiss and poles (the pots are listed in order of ranking so the strongest side is first etc).

pot 4 is interesting but i'd rather avoid georgia even though they are ranked 2nd worst in the pot. had enough of them. you want luxembourg here really. no doubt we'll end up with denmark, wales and georgia...

 

[don]

if we end up with one of the four pot one teams in the NL finals(Fra, Esp, Ita, Bel) then we are in a group of 5 as opposed to 6. if things dont improve we could easily finish 4th or 5th in the group. If we are at full strength and in good form we can finish second. Dates are three matches in the next international break at end of March, three in Sep, Three in Oct if you are not in with the NL finals teams otherwise one match in Oct and finally two in Nov. Playoffs are the following March-world cup is in November 2022.
Ideal draw- Croatia or Denmark, Slovakia or Rumania, Belarus or Luxemburg, Latvia or Andorra, SanMarino

 

[BlackpoolTerrier]

Jaysus, it could be Denmark, Wales, ROI, Macedonia, Cyprus, Gibraltar for the ultimate snooze-fest.

Edit - first campaign since I started following the team in the early 70’s that I have absolutely zero hope of any decent result.

 

[Arbuckle]

with 3 qualifiers coming up in March we will need to be EXTREMELY lucky to get the right fixtures in early to help build any kind of confidence and rhythm.

These qualifiers will likely be goosed from the outset.

 

[don]

Will need that luck. Only 13 teams qualify from Europe and we are ranked 22. Of the teams ahead of us at least 10 are no great shakes so if we can get it right we probably have a squeak.

 

[Roundyfield]

March is a long way and it isn’t. Parrot could be scoring regularly for Millwall. Idah could be thriving at Norwich and Cullen may be months into a successful season in Belgium. Molumpy could have found a transfer and regular football. Then again they may not.

 

[Tony Angelino]

Some of those teams in pot 2 are shit not as shit as us but shit all the same

That's all

 

[menace404]

Some of those teams in pot 2 are shit not as shit as us but shit all the same

That's all

That’s why you have a qualification system, duh.....to weed out the shit. Only 13 teams will come out of Europe and you can mostly assume all 10 in pot 1 will top their group and qualify automatically. That leaves 3 shit teams to qualify from the 46 also-ran teams in the remaining pots. Gonna be a tall order for shit teams to qualify.

 

[BlueMagic]

March is a long way and it isn’t. Parrot could be scoring regularly for Millwall. Idah could be thriving at Norwich and Cullen may be months into a successful season in Belgium. Molumpy could have found a transfer and regular football. Then again they may not.

I'm gonna say not

 

[Cloudy O'Ranieri]

Draw starts tomorrow at 5, and probably ends on Christmas eve.

Croatia, Romania, Ireland, Luxembourg, Andorra, San Marino