What’s happening and when?<\/p>\n
The draw for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup play-off semi-finals and final takes place in Nyon, Switzerland on Thursday morning, 11am Irish time.<\/p>\n
How are the Republic of Ireland looking?<\/p>\n
The Girls in Green missed out on direct qualification last week when they lost to France, who topped League A Group 2 to go straight to Brazil. However Ireland’s third-placed finish in the group means they enter the two-legged play-offs as a seeded country.<\/p>\n
It offers them a kinder pathway, on paper at least. Ireland will also have home advantage in the semi-final second leg and (should they get there) the second leg of the final.<\/p>\n
So who can Ireland get in the semi-finals?<\/p>\n
As a seeded nation, Carla Ward’s side – ranked 21st in the world – are in Path 1. They’ll face a League C country, which will be one of the following (world ranking in brackets): Hungary (45), Greece (59), Romania (53), Belarus (52), Kosovo (85), Lithuania (94), Croatia (63), Kazakhstan (100).<\/p>\n
Ireland would be strong favourites to beat any of those countries over two legs.<\/p>\n
And if they reach the final?<\/p>\n
If the Girls in Green get through the semis they’d take on the winner of a Path 2 tie between a League B second\/third-placed team and a League A last-placed team\/League B winner.<\/p>\n
That could pit Ireland against Belgium (18), who they beat in the Nations League promotion\/relegation play-off last October, or Poland (29), who they defeated twice in group qualification.<\/p>\n
Finland (24), Scotland (25), Portugal (22), Switzerland (26) and Wales (30) are other dangerous opponents potentially waiting in the long grass.<\/p>\n
Ireland could also meet Slovenia (38), Serbia (35), Ukraine (34), Turkey (46), Czechia (33), Albania (67), Northern Ireland (50), Slovakia (54) or Israel (66).<\/p>\n
When and where will the games take place?<\/p>\n
The semi-final legs take place on 7 and 13 October, with Ireland likely to play the home game at Tallaght Stadium. The final is slated for 26 November (away) and 5 December (home).<\/p>\n
The FAI have not confirmed venues yet, but a return to Aviva Stadium would be anticipated. Ireland played Wales at Lansdowne Road in the second leg of the Euro 2025 play-off final back in December 2024.<\/p>\n
Win the two play-offs and Ireland are there, yes?<\/p>\n
Yes. The seven best-ranked play-off final winners according to the European Qualifiers overall league rankings qualify directly for the World Cup. The one remaining play-off final winner would head for the inter-confederation play-offs in February 2027, but Ireland won’t have to worry about that. They’re currently ranked ninth in the overall league rankings<\/a>. Of the teams in the play-offs, only England, Norway, Netherlands and Italy are higher.<\/p>\n Poland, for example, are 14th, while Belgium are 22nd.<\/p>\n \n Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s happening and when? The draw for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup play-off semi-finals and final takes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-504560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}