Updated 12.17
THIS AFTERNOON THE draw for the 2018 World Cup takes place in St Petersburg and, for the first time in 25 years, Ireland will be in pot four and face the prospect of meeting three of Europe’s heavyweights.
However, it’s not all bad news as Ireland could actually come out of the draw with a relatively — and we mean relatively — easy group.
There will be nine groups in total, with seven groups of six and two groups of five. Uefa has requested that England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands take part in six-team groups because of TV rights deals.
Here are the pots:
Pot one: Germany, Belgium, Holland, Romania, England, Wales, Portugal, Spain, Croatia.
Pot two: Italy, Slovakia, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, France, Iceland, Denmark, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Pot three: Poland, Ukraine, Scotland, Hungary, Sweden, Albania, Northern Ireland, Serbia, Greece.
Pot four: Turkey, Slovenia, Israel, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Bulgaria, Faroe Islands, Montenegro, Estonia.
Pot five: Cyprus, Latvia, Armenia, Finland, Belarus, Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova.
Pot six: Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Malta, San Marino, Andorra.
The winner of each group gets through automatically, with the eight best runners-up going into a play-off.
As for how the groups will actually look, let’s start with the bad news first because, that way, you can just cover your eyes and tell yourself this can’t happen before it, inevitably, does.
The Group of Death
Spain
France
Poland
Republic of Ireland
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan
The Best case scenario
Romania
Iceland
Greece
Republic of Ireland
Lithuania
What do you think, is there any particular draw you’d like to see?
Originally published Friday 18.00
