Why Ireland’s chances of reaching Euro playoffs are almost zero - 0.12%
Ireland does love a major tournament but the famine will stretch toward a decade once next month rolls around and the line-up is confirmed for the Euro playoffs next March.
In a difficult group against France and Netherlands, that was always likely to be Ireland’s fallback from a failure to finish in the top two but two other developments have deepened the gloom.
Firstly, regardless of whether Ireland had a more favourable draw like, for example, Group G with Hungary and Serbia as leading seeds, the pair of defeats to Greece would have been fatal.
Gus Poyet’s team were, lest we forget, fourth seeds but that is where Ireland were guaranteed to finish with two games to spare.
The other scenario that’s unfolded is the backdoor ticket Ireland seemingly had from their Nations League campaign has all but been wrenched from their grasp.
Robbie Brady’s late penalty to rescue a 3-2 win over Armenia in 13 months placed Ireland 26th in UEFA’s standings.
Without delving too deep into the weeds, those rankings are frozen until the regular Euro qualifiers are completed, allowing 12 teams that don’t achieve top-two finishes entry into the playoffs next March. There are berths available from each of the three mini-groups consisting of semis and finals.
Some strange results and upsets in the other groups has seen Ireland been leapfrogged by teams they led when the Nations League concluded last year.
Irish fans realising the complexion of the qualifying group was eluding Ireland have been tracking these groups, with the Twitter account @We_Global informative by rating the percentage prospects for each nation.
Throughout this year, Ireland have slipped from 25% to 12%, then 2% last week.
The latest simulation, in the aftermath of
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