World Dominanation: Plan B

The situation for Euro Qualifying is straight forward now. It is beginning to appear that 2nd place is out of our grasp (Germany and Poland are playing the minnows of the group this weekend and should be able to consolidate the top two places between them now). It is a battle with Scotland for the 3rd place and hope to qualify as best 3rd place or by way of a play-off. That makes the Scottish game at the weekend a do or die affair.

What of the seeding for the World Cup draw? The ranking of next month will be used to designate the pots and it will be good news for Romania, England and Croatia who all look set to make Pot 1. It could also be good news for Wales and N. Ireland who both have Pot 2 in their hands at the moment. Wales to beat Belgium would actually push them over the edge and into Pot 1.

But what of Ireland. Read here to see how we did have our destiny in our own hands before we failed to beat Poland at home in the last qualifier. Now, its complicated.

The most points that Ireland can hope for is 760 with two wins. This would put us 21st and presumably in Pot 3. Because Russia qualify as hosts the 19th placed UEFA team in the FIFA rankings will be the last team to qualify for Pot 2. We would be 2 places short.

If Scotland and Iceland could slip up they would all lose FIFA ranking points. That could be the 2 places we could make up. We can take care of Scotland ourselves and Iceland will be underdogs against the Czech Republic. Then 760 points might be enough for Pot 2. 

That's not the end of the story. If those results were all to happen, Ireland are not the first team in the queue to take advantage of those slip ups. We would need N. Ireland to be beaten by Romania. And more unlikely would be Poland to lose against Georgia - but we will need either this or Ukraine to lose to Luxembourg.

Greece are playing Faroes, so there won't be enough points available for them even if they win. Slovenia should be taken care of by England - a defeat or a draw would put Slovenia out of our way (Come on England!). Bosnia play Israel - they are both ahead of us in the ranking - so we need a draw here which is plausible. Hungary play Finland - we'll be hoping the Fins at least draw. The Albanians won't have a chance to score enough FIFA points because their match against France is just a friendly. Sweden we would hope will fail to win against Norway or Montenegro.

If all this was to happen then Ireland would be in Pot 2 and would avoid any second tier teams like France, Czech Republic and Switzerland. It would be a great boost to our World Cup qualification chances for 2018.

Can it happen? I built the accumulator needed on Paddy Power and it is paying back over 7000/1. So no - but we can dream.

	overall rank	confed rank	team	estimated pts already earned to Jul 2015	Possible points to see Ireland nab Pot 2	Scenario
pot 1	1	1	Germany	1482.9
	2	2	Belgium	1314.4
	3	3	Romania	1232.9
	5	4	Netherlands	1220.0
	6	5	England	1174.7
	7	6	Portugal	1098.2
	10	7	Croatia	1034.5
	11	8	Spain	1027.0
	12	9	Italy	1024.6
pot 2	13	10	Wales	1024.3
	14	11	Czech Republic	1017.8
	15	12	Slovakia	1015.7
	17	13	Switzerland	962.1
	18	14	France	954.2
	19	15	Austria	930.9
	23	16	Denmark	802.5	757-869	Play Serbia - so the result doesn’t matter, a win for either make them uncatchable and a draw means we cant catch denmark.
	24	17	Scotland	798.9	733	if they lose to ireland (11/10)
	25	18	Russia	793.8		Automatic place in Finals (presuming WC2018 still goes to Russia!)
	26	19	Iceland	789.3	740	if they lose to Czech (13/8)
pot 3	27	20	Poland	780.6	751	if they lose to Georgia (9/1)
	29	21	Ukraine	756.4	749	if they lose to Luxembourg (18/1)
	32	22	Northern Ireland	734.4	720	If they lose to Romania (13/10)
	33	23	Sweden	719.2	752	Max points if they draw or lose to either Norway or Montenegro (4/9 for Norway or Draw or 9/5 for Montenegro and draw).
	35	24	Albania	710.3	722	Play France - even if they win wont be enough
	37	25	Hungary	704.5	694	If they draw with Finland (1/3 for Finland or Draw)
	38	26	Israel	703.7	689	if they draw with bosnia (13/5)
	39	27	Bosnia and Herzegovina	699.1	720	If they draw with Israel (13/5)
	40	28	Serbia	687.1	675-856	Play Denmark - so the result doent matter a win for either makes them uncatchable and a draw means we cant catch Denmark.
	43	29	Greece	676.4	756	Max points even if they win against Faroes
pot 4	44	30	Slovenia	670.4	683	If they draw with England (1/6 for England or draw)
	47	31	Republic of Ireland	637.7	760	beat england (11/4) and scotland (11/10)
	53	32	Turkey	573.0
	64	33	Norway	512.9
	65	34	Montenegro	495.6
	68	35	Bulgaria	491.9
	79	36	Latvia	408.4
	80	37	Finland	407.5
	82	38	Estonia	397.3
pot 5	83	39	Armenia	382.8
	84	40	Belarus	379.9
	85	41	Cyprus	378.6
	89	42	Lithuania	367.8
	97	43	FYR Macedonia	322.7
	108	44	Azerbaijan	291.1
	111	45	Faroe Islands	284.4
	123	46	Moldova	224.0
	130	47	Kazakhstan	205.2
Pot 6	131	48	Liechtenstein	196.8
	132	49	Georgia	196.6
	134	50	Luxembourg	193.3
	154	51	Malta	133.7
	190	52	San Marino	46.2
	202	53	Andorra	8.5