The Republic of Ireland has narrowly avoided a drop from top to third seeds for next month's World Cup draw in the wake of the team's disappointing Euro 2004 campaign. Ireland are now ranked 15th of the 51 nations that will go into the hat in Frankfurt on December 5th.
The Republic has slipped nine places in the list since the draw for Euro 2004 was made. On both occasions teams were rated on the basis of the average number of points they acquired from each qualifying group game in the previous two campaigns.
But with next month's draw set to produce eight qualification groups, rather than the 10 used for Portugal, and the number of seeds at each level being reduced accordingly, the Irish have only narrowly retained even second seed status. In fact, Brian Kerr's side would almost certainly have ended up as third seeds had they secured just one point fewer during the campaign that ended last month in Basel.
UEFA officials yesterday confirmed the Irish have been placed among the second group of teams in the organisation's recommended format for the European part of the draw for the qualifying stages of the 2006 World Cup. FIFA is not obliged to adopt these proposals, which also include the structure of five groups containing six teams and three made up of seven each, but it is expected that the organisation will ratify them in the days preceding the draw.
Other countries to drop out of the leading group include Belgium and Romania, with the latter having slipped into the third pot after finishing third in Group Two of the European qualifiers.
Germany will not be included in the draw as they qualify automatically as hosts, but Portugal are back among the top seeds with the ranking being decided solely on the basis of their performance in the last World Cup campaign, when they finished level on 24 points from 10 games with the Republic.
Scotland have been relegated from the second to the third pool of teams despite having reached the play-offs in the current campaign, while Wales, who also finished second in their group, only just retained their fourth seeds status despite rising three places to 32nd in the list.
Switzerland, who topped Ireland's Group 10 in the Euro 2004 campaign, are again third seeds, but England have earned a return to the leading group of nations. Bulgaria are likely to displace Slovenia in the second tier by virtue of having performed more strongly in the more recent of the two competitions on which the rankings are based.
The bottom two nations in the list, Luxembourg and Andorra, neither of whom have managed a point in the last two preliminary competitions, will join UEFA newcomers Kazakhstan in Pot G for the draw. These three will be allocated to the seven-team groups.
Irish skipper Kenny Cunningham admitted yesterday that the qualification group for Germany is likely to be considerably more difficult than the one from which they had just failed to progress, but, he said, the players felt they could bounce back from what had been a terribly disappointing performance.
"If I'm honest I'd have to say that that disappointment is still lingering around the place," he said. "I think that when you look at what the Welsh achieved the other day in Russia it's impossible to avoid thinking, 'what if?', but that will fade once next month's draw takes place, we know who we're facing and we've got a couple of big matches to look forward to.
"A lot of people would have suggested that our group the last time was probably the easiest we'd been in since, well, in the time that I've been involved with the team anyway, and that's probably right. But we didn't make it. And yet we can come out of one containing two of the giants of international football. It's hard to understand, but it does seem that 'underdogs' is a tag we revel in."
Cunningham, however, said the team's current position is similar to the one endured by the players in the wake of the play-off defeat by Turkey. "I remember sitting in the dressingroom after that game and everyone being very upset, but you have to leave the disappointment behind you. We said that night that we'd be more determined next time around and we came back to qualify for a World Cup. We have to do that again now."
PROVISIONAL SEEDINGS: 1 France; 2 Portugal; 3 Sweden; 4 Czech Republic; 5 Spain, England and Italy; 8 Turkey; 9 Netherlands and Poland; 11 Croatia; 12 Belgium; 13 Russia and Denmark; 15 Republic of Ireland; 16 Bulgaria and Slovenia; 18 Romania; 19 Scotland; 20 Serbia & Montenegro; 21 Switzerland; 22 Greece; 23 Ukraine, Slovakia and Austria; 26 Iceland; 27 Finland; 28 Norway; 29 Israel and Bosnia Herzegovina; 31 Latvia; 32 Wales; 33 Hungary; 34 Georgia, 35 Belarus; 36, Estonia and Cyprus; 38 Northern Ireland; 39 Lithuania; 40 Macedonia; 41 Albania; 42 Moldova and Armenia; 44 Liechtenstein and San Marino; 46 Azerbaijan; 47 The Faroe Islands; 48 Malta; 49 Luxembourg, Andorra and Kazakhstan.
