Looking Forward to WC 2018

Ireland's qualification for WC2018 has already begun in my eyes.  It is likely that the qualifying groups will be seeded according to July 2015 Fifa Rankings (see here).  Every match between now and then will count rankings points towards these seedings.  Ireland are likely to be in one of the Pots 3 to 5 based on current rankings.  This would mean that as well as a top seed like Germany, Spain and Belgium that Ireland will also have to contend with a Pot 2 team like England (current rankings place them only 12th in Europe), Netherlands (who are on a drastic slide) and France (who will find it hard to maintain a high place in the FIFA rankings while only playing friendlies from here to 2016).

Much better for Ireland would be to be in Pot 2 themselves and avoid these big names.  There are no teams provisionally in Pots 3-5 that will be a worry.

The teams ranked 1st to 9th within Europe will likely make up Pot 1, with teams placed 10th to 18th in Pot 2, depending on where Russia are placed.

To make Pot 2 Ireland would need to simply make 18th or 19th placed European team in the rankings by July 2015.  18th would guarantee Pot 2.  19th will be good enough if the 2018 World Cup hosts Russia (currently 19th) are ranked better than 18th.  Russia qualify automatically, so this would open up an extra spot in Pot 2.  

Ireland are currently 61st in the World, placing them 33rd of the European nations.  Is 18th or even 19th too big of an ask?

Maybe not.

Ireland's ranking points/position in July 2015 will depend on their results in previous 4 years.  Three years of those results are already in and summarised below:

Table: FIFA Ranking Points already earned by Ireland
counting toward July 2015 rank.

A total of 214 points, is not very impressive so far.  Remember though the matches from July 2014 to July 2015 will be fully weighted and likely to make a huge difference.  Will it be big enough of a difference?  What should they be targeting anyway?

The table below shows how many FIFA points have generally been good enough to finish 18th/19th ranked European nation in the official FIFA rankings.  

It looks like Ireland need to aim for at least 700-800 plus points.  The more the better!  As discussed, Ireland already have 214 points in the bag so probably need to make an average 600-ish points to make the cut.  All points from July 2014-July 2015 will be average out over the 8 scheduled matches in that period.  So to average 600-ish points, Ireland will need to total 4800-ish points (this is assuming that no more friendlies are announced - if Ireland were to play 9 games then the total target would become 5400 pts, 10 matches then 6000 pts).

Table: How many points will be good enough to make 18th/19th European Nation?

Below shows the games already played combined with the best case scenario for the matches still to play.  FIFA explains how ranking points are calculated here.

Table: Ireland's matches that will be averaged out and fully weighted toward the July 2015 rankings

Now bear in mind that we estimated that we need about 4800-ish points, so the total possible of about 5033 does give us some wiggle room, but to be honest not much - for example a draw with USA would give us 162 points instead of 488 which would drop us below our target.

If any extra friendlies are scheduled then the target changes to 5400 or 6000 points and will not be possible at all, considering even a perfect score against a high ranked team like England only gives 534 points.

It looks like a huge task, and although possible, its probably not probable.  The one thing that gives me hope is that Ireland will have home advantage for all these matches.

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