Ireland’s football team are so back.
Thursday’s stunning 2-0 victory over Portugal creates an abundance of horizons heading into Sunday’s final set of qualifiers.
One of those, if we whisper it, is direct entry into next year’s World Cup in North America.
For that to unravel, Ireland would need to not only beat Hungary well but rely on Armenia causing a bigger shock than Ireland by beating the Portuguese in Lisbon. There’s a goal difference of four to overturn.
More realistically, a win of any kind over the Hungarians in Budapest clinches the runners-up spot right at the death for Ireland.
Margin of victory became irrelevant once Troy Parrott grabbed that brace.
For the first time since 2019, when a 1-1 draw against Denmark wasn’t enough, Ireland are in the mix in the last game.
Each of the 67,215 seats at the Puskás Aréna is spoken for, heightening the tensions around the shootout. A draw is sufficient for the Magyars to retain second spot.
Whichever of the teams emerges with the runner-up tag will be entered into next Thursday’s playoff draw. They will also be guaranteed to be referenced, by pathway, in the overall World Cup tournament draw being held in Washington on Friday, December 5.
Here’s the background.
An expanded 48-team tournament increases the number of European slots from 13 to 16 at the finals to be co-hosted by USA, Mexico and Canada from June 11-July 19.
Qualifying kicked off in March featuring six groups of four teams and six groups of five. Ireland, due to their playoff commitments against Bulgaria in March, began theirs in September within one of the four-nation pools.
The winner of each group at the end of the campaign qualifies directly for the tournament, while the second-placed teams advance to next March’s playoffs.
They will be joined by the four best-ranked group winners from the last Uefa Nations League series who finished outside of the top two of their World Cup qualifying group.
That won’t be known until the regulation series concludes next Tuesday, November 18.
Those 16 teams will be drawn into four paths at a ceremony to be held at Fifa headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, next Thursday, November 20.
As it stands, heading into the final window of the qualifiers, the runners-up across the 12 groups are Slovakia, Kosovo, Scotland, Iceland, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Italy, North Macedonia, Albania, Czech Republic.
Some nations, such as Scotland and Wales, are guaranteed entry to the playoffs.
Playoffs feature two rounds of single-match play-offs (semi-finals with the seeded teams to host, followed by finals, with the home teams to be drawn).
The four path winners will qualify for the World Cup.
Of the 16, 12 group runners-up will be allocated to Pots 1 to 3 (based on the Fifa ranking as of November 2025), while the four teams advancing via the Nations League will be automatically placed into Pot 4.
Play-off Path A is formed by semi-finals 1 and 2, with the winners of both semi-finals advancing to final A.
Play-off Path B is formed by semi-finals 3 and 4, with the winners of both semi-finals advancing to final B.
Play-off Path C is formed by semi-finals 5 and 6, with the winners of both semi-finals advancing to final C.
Play-off Path D is formed by semi-finals 7 and 8, with the winners of both semi-finals advancing to final D.
The draw for the semi-finals will start with Pot 1 and complete with Pot 4.
The Pot 1 teams (seeded) will be allocated to semi-finals 1, 3, 5 and 7 as the host team.
The Pot 2 teams (seeded) will be allocated to semi-finals 2, 4, 6 and 8 as the host team.
The Pot 3 teams (unseeded) will be allocated to semi-finals 2, 4, 6 and 8 as the away team.
The Pot 4 teams (unseeded) will be allocated to semi-finals 1, 3, 5 and 7 as the away team.
The draw for the final hosts will take place immediately afterwards, with finals A, B, C and D each having one of their semi-finalists selected as the host team.
