We’ve done our best to make sense of the whole thing. Here’s how Ireland can qualify for Euro 2020.
The groups for the Euro 2020 qualifiers were announced on Sunday morning, and Ireland fans can be pretty happy with how it ended up.
We are in a group with Switzerland, Denmark, Georgia and Gibraltar.
And as we know, it could have been a hell of a lot worse…
So it’s not inconceivable that we might actually qualify.
But how can we qualify? What do we have to do? Is it actually going to happen?
Here’s everything you need to know.
Obviously, there is the chance that we can go through automatically. That would take place if we top our group, or if we manage to come second.
But let’s look at the most likely outcome. Finishing third, probably behind Denmark and Switzerland.
Ireland are ranked 23rd in the official Nations League rankings.
If Ireland come third (which is realistically what we should be aiming to do), in order for us not to get a play-off, six teams ranked below us in these rankings would have to come first or second in their group.
The teams ranked below us include Albania, Montenegro, Scotland and Israel, so it is extremely unlikely that six of them will come first or second in their group.
Long story short, a play-off is quite a likely outcome for us.
But we will undoubtedly end up making hard work of it somehow…
Who we actually play in the play-offs is a different story altogether.
The play-offs will not be determined by our performance in the qualifying group. Instead, it will be decided by our performance in the Nations League.
And in case you’ve forgotten, our performance was terrible.
This means that we will be drawn against a team that is a much higher ranking than us. This could be a team who have performed well in the Nations League but not well enough to qualify automatically, or a team that comes second in their Euro 2020 qualifying group.
But sure look, anything can happen over 90 minutes. Bring it on.
COYBIG!
