After last night’s joyous qualification to Euro 2012, the only question on everyone’s mind is who Ireland could face at the tournament next summer. Here are the tournament’s draw pots.
With Ireland, Portugal, Croatia and the Czech Republic winning their respective play-off encounters, we’re just hours away from FIFA’s official seeding for each, although it’s unlikely to alter from their current draw pot seeding.
With that in mind, here are the current draw pots for the Euro 2012 draw, to be held on Friday, December 2 at the National Palace of Arts in Kiev, Ukraine:
Pot 1: Ukraine (hosts), Poland (hosts), Spain (holders), Netherlands
Pot 2: Germany, Italy, England, Russia
Pot 3: Croatia, Greece, Sweden, Portugal
Pot 4: Ireland, France, Czech Republic, Denmark
As you can see above, the two unfortunate facts for Ireland are that they are seeded fourth and also, that as it stands, can mathematically not play bitter rivals France until at least the knock-out stages.
With the current seedings, we’ve put together three possible groups that Ireland could face when the draw is made in two and a half weeks. One is incredibly difficult, one’s not so bad and one would be hilarious.
Group of Death:
Spain
Germany
Portugal
Ireland
Nobody wants this. After last night’s 3-0 victory over Holland, Germany are edging ever closer to becoming the tournament favourites, while Portugal, who had the toughest play-off opponent in Bosnia, destroyed the Eastern Europeans 6-2 last night.
The Surprisingly Not That Difficult Group:
Poland
Russia
Greece
Ireland
If Richard Dunne can emulate his heroic Moscow performance from our qualifying group, this lineup of opponents could be a cinch. Sure, the games against Poland and Greece would send the entire country into mass slumber, but if we have to squeak through Italia ’90-style by numbing our opposition, we’ll do it.
Group of Debt:
Spain
Italy
Greece
Ireland
Don’t laugh – it could easily happen, although it would be that much better if Portugal were in place of Spain for this group. As the media looks for parallels to Euro ’88 (recession, a winning football team, the player’s moustaches last night), it would be nice for every country experiencing economic woes to share the burden in their own IMF-approved group above.
Who would you like to see us play next summer? Would you prefer to avoid England or take on our neighbours in the group stages? Let us know in the comments section below.
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