Gavin Cooney

Hang on, how did we end up playing England in the Nations League? 

Yes, the Nations League is supposed to pit teams of a similar level against one another, and yet England – who have played in each of the previous two Euros finals – will face an Ireland side whose only competitive wins in that period have come against Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Scotland, Armenia, and Gibraltar. 

That’s because Ireland successfully staved off relegation last time out by beating Armenia on the final day to finish in third place. England were relegated from League A, meanwhile, finishing bottom of a group featuring Italy, Hungary, and Germany. 

Ireland’s other group opponents will be Greece and Finland. 

Has anything changed from previous editions of the Nations League? 

Yep – now there’s even more games. 

The basics remain the same. If Ireland top their group they’ll be promoted to League A, and if they finish bottom they will be relegated to League C. 

But this time around, promotion and relegation play-offs have been added to the mix. 

So if Ireland finish second in their group, they’ll play a two-legged, home-and-away promotion play-off against a side finishing third in a League A group. The winner of that plays in League A next time around. 

But if Ireland finish third in their group – as they have done in all three previous editions of the Nations League – they’ll play a relegation play-off against a side finishing second in their League C group. 

Those games will be played next March. 

March? Hang on…aren’t we supposed to play World Cup qualifiers then? 

Yes – this is why the next World Cup qualifiers draw is going to be mind-bendingly confusing. 

Uefa’s bloating of the football calendar is such that they will play both Nations League games and World Cup qualifiers next March and June. 

Along with the play-offs we have outlined above, the two top sides in each of the League A groups are playing Nations League quarter-finals in March, with the four winners going onto the final tournament in June.

So with two separate competitions going on side-by-side, the draw is going to be complicated with a whole load of stipulations. 

When is this World Cup qualifiers draw?

It’s scheduled for December, though Fifa have yet to confirm the date. 

Okay, let’s get into it – how does seeding for the World Cup qualifiers work? 

First of all, seeding will be primarily done by Fifa world ranking. While Uefa use the Nations League ranking for everything to do with seeding for their Euros, the World Cup is Fifa’s tournament and so they decree it must be done by their world ranking. 

However, Uefa have convinced them to allow them use the Nations League rankings in one way. Therefore, the top seeds in the European section of the World Cup qualifier draw will be the top eight sides in the forthcoming Nations League, along with the next four highest-ranked sides in the Fifa rankings. 

This is particularly good news for England. They obviously can’t be ranked at the top of the Nations League seedings given they are in League B, but they are fourth in Fifa’s rankings and so are pretty much guaranteed to be top seeds. 

The rest of the seedings are done according to Fifa ranking at the end of the November window. 

There will be 12 teams in pots one, two, three, and four, with another seven teams in the lowly pot five. 

What seeding will Ireland likely have? 

Ireland are 58th in the world rankings which translates into being the 27th-best ranked side in Europe. (That’s assuming Russia are not admitted to World Cup qualifying – though no official decision has been made on that yet. If Russia are allowed to return, Ireland would slip to 28th.) 

That means that Ireland are expected to be third seeds in the World Cup qualifier draw in December.

They are high enough in the rankings that it would take a truly disastrous run of results for them to fall low enough to be fourth seeds, though it’s unlikely they will bridge the gap to the sides ranked in pot two.

(Ireland are 63 ranking points from the lowest side in pot two, for example, and an unlikely win against England would yield 12 ranking points. They’d have to win all their Nations League group games and hope other results go their way to claw their way any higher.) 

How many sides qualify for the World Cup? 

The World Cup has expanded to 48 teams, but that has brought just an additional three places for European teams, meaning only 16 of the 54 competing nations across Europe qualify for the competition. 

There will be 12 groups across European qualifying, and the group winner of each will qualify automatically for the World Cup. The remaining four spots will be decided via play-offs. 

The 12 group runners-up qualify for those play-offs, where they will be joined by the four highest-ranked Nations League group winners who have not already qualified. 

That means Ireland would have to win this Nations League group to be guaranteed a 2026 World Cup play-off. Hence we’ve been pretty unlucky to have been landed with England. 

What happens if we end up playing Nations League play-offs in March? 

December’s qualifying draw is going to take this into account. 

First of all, four teams from League A are going to win their March quarter-finals and so they are not going to be able to play qualifiers in June either, so they will be guaranteed to play in one of five four-team World Cup qualifying groups, so they can fit their entire campaign in across the September, October, and November windows. 

But given that final four won’t be decided until next March, we actually won’t know the names of the teams who have to be given four-team groups. So the top seeds will be drawn using placeholder names only” Winner QF1, Loser QF2, etc. 

That’s pretty unsatisfactory for fans who wish to plan trips and associations who want to put plans in place: the identity of their highest-ranked opponent won’t be confirmed until after the Nations League quarter-finals in March. 

The rest of the draw will consist of five-team groups. 

The teams involved in the March play-offs will be given priority allocation into four-team groups, so as to allow as much time as possible to get games played. Therefore, if Ireland end up in a March play-off, it will increase their probability of being placed in a four-team World Cup qualifying group. 

But there’s technically no limit to the number of teams from a certain pot who will end up in these March play-offs, so here’s where things get even more complicated. 

Are you still with us? 

Barely. 

I don’t blame you. 

So it is possible that, say, a whole heap of teams from pot three end up playing promotion/relegation play-offs in March, and if so, Fifa would draw the balls until they’d eventually get to a point where there were too many teams involved in these play-offs to be able to complete a qualifier match in March.

Because if there are too many teams in a particular group playing Nations League matches in March, it becomes impossible to fit a World Cup qualifier in March, too. 

On the face of it, this is unlikely, but they have to plan for every scenario.

Fifa have not yet publicly confirmed their plans to address this, but their current policy was circulated to national associations in a briefing document this week. We have obtained a copy of this document. 

If it happens that there are too many play-off teams in a certain pot, Fifa are going to alter the pots before the draw.

So if this comes to pass, they plan to drop the lowest-ranked play-off participant into a lower pot and promote the highest-ranked team not involved in the play-offs. 

This may not have to be done, and if it does happen, there’s a very small chance of it affecting Ireland. We are sufficiently highly-ranked among the third pot to have to be extraordinarily unlucky to drop to pot four it came to it: we’d have to have finished bottom of our Nations League group for it to be in play. 

And while we are among the highest ranked teams in pot three and so might dream of a default vault to second seeds in the draw, to be in contention we’d have to win our group ahead of England to top our group and avoid Nations League play off action in March. 

But it’s still worth monitoring, because it may cause a lot of controversy once the draw swings around.