Republic of Ireland manager Carla Ward believes that her side were handed the tie that ‘everyone wanted to avoid’ in their 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup play-off draw.
Ireland were drawn against Kazahkstan in their two-legged semi-final, a fixture that they’ll be happy with given that their opponents are ranked 100th in the world.
However it’s the potential final opponents that will be of most concern after Ireland were grouped with either Belgium or Poland.
Belgium, ranked 18th in the world, and Poland (29th) are familiar foes for Ireland, who have got the better of both sides in recent times.
Ward’s team won both home and away Poland in the UEFA Nations League recently, while they battled to a 5-4 relegation play-off over Belgium in the same competition at the end of last year.
The Ireland boss expects a difficult path to the World Cup, regardless of which team they met.
She said: “When you want to get to Brazil it’s going to be a difficult route and I think there’s a couple of bits in both rounds that will naturally cause us some difficulties.
“We’ve been in tremendous form and confidence is high. We have to keep believing that we can get there, and we’ll do everything we can to do that.
“I think everybody in the room would probably say that it was the one that everyone wanted to avoid, Belgium and Poland are top sides.
“We played Belgium in the play-off going back in November. They were a really good side and they’ve shown that again, I think they were unfortunate to be unseeded this time round.
“If you’re going to get to a World Cup you’ve got to beat the best and we’re in a good position with the campaign we’ve had, so we’ll go into it with confidence.
“I think form will probably go out the window. Previous games will go out the window. I think that it will be a one-off big play-off final. It’ll be a very different game to what we witnessed in both games at the Aviva.”
Ireland celebrate at Páirc Uí Chaoimh
While Ireland will be heavy favourites against Kazakhstan, Ward is taking nothing for granted against a side that will offer their own problems – not least the travel involved for the away leg.
The Irish boss said: “First of all we’ve got to get past Kazakhstan, it’s not easy, it’s a logistical nightmare.
“Kazakhstan, Poland and Belgium are all going to be difficult. So look we’ll do everything we can to get over that first hurdle and then obviously try and navigate that final round if and when we get there.”
The matches with Kazakhstan will take place from 7-13 October and while the away leg will present issues, the FAI have a more positive problem for the home leg – where to host it.
Having drawn crowds of 18,267 at the Aviva Stadium and 12,569 and Páirc Uí Chaoimh in their recent games with Poland and Netherlands, both venues are again in the running for the play-offs and Ward is clear on where she’d like to play.
“You don’t have to ask me twice about Cork. I absolutely love it down there and I think the players do too.
“It’s not been confirmed where we’ll play, but we would love to have one in Dublin and one in Cork. I think that would be the ultimate dream. We’ll have to wait and see and let the powers that be look after that side of it.”
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