![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/UEFA.png\")
<\/p>\nItaly will host Northern Ireland in the 2026 World Cup play-off semi-final, with the victors to visit Wales or Bosnia & Herzegovina in the final stage.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, the Republic of Ireland will travel to Czech Republic and will host the winners of Denmark\u2019s tie against North Macedonia.<\/p>\n
In the inter-confederation play-offs, Jamaica will play New Caledonia ahead of a potential play-off final against DR Congo, with Iraq playing the winners of Bolivia against Suriname.<\/p>\n
The European play-offs consist of eight single-leg semi-finals and four finals, of which the four winners will advance to next year\u2019s finals in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n
The draw has been divided into fourth paths, featuring one team from each of the four seeded pots, with the winners of each path semi-final facing each other in a final.<\/p>\n
The semi-finals and finals will be played on March 26 and 31 respectively.<\/p>\n
European play-off semi-final draw:<\/p>\n
Path A<\/p>\n
Italy vs Northern Ireland
\nWales vs Bosnia & Herzegovina<\/p>\n
Winner of Wales vs Bosnia & Herzegovina with home advantage in final<\/p>\n
Path B<\/p>\n
Ukraine vs Sweden
\nPoland vs Albania<\/p>\n
Winner of Ukraine vs Sweden with home advantage in final<\/p>\n
Path C<\/p>\n
Turkey vs Romania
\nSlovakia vs Kosovo<\/p>\n
Winner of Slovakia vs Kosovo with home advantage in final<\/p>\n
Path D<\/p>\n
Denmark vs North Macedonia
\nCzech Republic vs Republic of Ireland<\/p>\n
Winner of Czech Republic vs Republic of Ireland with home advantage in final<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Inter-confederation play-off draw:<\/p>\n
DR Congo and Iraq, the two highest FIFA-ranked sides, have been seeded and move straight into the final of their separate pathways. They will each face a winner of the semi-final draw to determine a place in the finals.<\/p>\n
Jamaica and Suriname have been kept apart due to both being members of the same federation (Concacaf).<\/p>\n
The matches will be played across the final week in March in Guadalajara and Monterrey, Mexico, respectively.<\/p>\n
Semi-finals:<\/p>\n
New Caledonia vs Jamaica (winners to play DR Congo)
\nBolivia vs Suriname (winners to play Iraq)<\/p>\n
Finals:<\/p>\n
DR Congo vs Winner of semi-final 1
\nIraq vs Winner of semi-final 2
\nHow did the European draw work?<\/p>\n
Europe has historically been allocated the most slots at the World Cup, and the expansion from a 32- to a 48-team tournament sees the number go from 11 to 16.<\/p>\n
In the qualification phase, nations were divided into six groups of four and six groups of five teams, with the group winners qualifying automatically.<\/p>\n
England, Portugal, Norway, Croatia, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Scotland, and the Netherlands all qualified directly as group winners.<\/p>\n
The 12 group runners-up qualified for the play-off system, in which they have been joined by the four highest-ranked 2024-25 Nations League group winners that finished outside the top two of their qualifying group (based on their Nations League interim overall ranking).<\/p>\n
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Kosovo, Wales, Republic of Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine all reached the play-offs through their second-place group finishes.<\/p>\n
Romania, Sweden, Northern Ireland and North Macedonia all reached the play-offs courtesy of their Nations League performance.<\/p>\n
The play-offs were decided by seeding pots in line with FIFA rankings, with teams from pot one drawn at home against teams from pot four, while teams from pot two hosting a team from pot three in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
Each of the four play-off paths will feature one team from each pot, with the semi-final winners from those paths facing each other in that pathway\u2019s final.<\/p>\n
As part of UEFA\u2019s scheduling, losing semi-finalists will face a friendly match against each other on the day of the path finals.<\/p>\n
What about the inter-confederation play-offs?<\/p>\n
There are two remaining non-European World Cup spots, which will be decided by the six-team inter-confederation play-offs, consisting of DR Congo, New Caledonia, Bolivia, Iraq, Jamaica\u00a0and Suriname.<\/p>\n
Two nations, DR Congo and Iraq, were seeded and automatically advanced to the finals on separate paths. The remaining four teams were unseeded.<\/p>\n
The unseeded teams will consist of a pair of single-leg semi-finals, with the two winners advancing to the finals. The two final winners will be the 47th and 48th nations at the 2026 men\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n
The play-offs will be held in March in Mexico, though exact dates have yet to be confirmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy will host Northern Ireland in the 2026 World Cup play-off semi-final, with the victors to visit Wales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[33696,53565,7983,113962,6090,6801,14111,157678,18610,5332,20456,16971,9121,34640,94674,403,99,6804,12807,1208,5331],"class_list":["post-303376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-albania","tag-bolivia","tag-czech-republic","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-international-football","tag-italy","tag-jamaica","tag-north-macedonia","tag-northern-ireland","tag-poland","tag-republic-of-ireland","tag-romania","tag-scotland","tag-serie-a","tag-slovakia","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-sweden","tag-turkey","tag-ukraine","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}