Ireland will face either Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sweden or Hungary in the Euro 2016 play-offs after results failed to go their way on the final night of qualifiers.
Martin O’Neill’s men had an outside chance of being granted seeded status but needed a chain of scorelines to fall for them: Norway to draw or lose to Italy, Croatia to overcome Malta, Bosnia to lose to Cyprus and Turkey to draw with Iceland.
In the event, although Italy overcame the Norwegians 2-1 in Rome, Bosnia came out on the right side of a five-goal thriller in Cyprus, winning 3-2, and Turkey earned automatic qualification as the best third-placed team thanks to a last-gasp 1-0 win against Iceland.
Hungary looked nailed on to take the best third-placed spot but Selcuk Inan’s injury-time free-kick sent the Turks to France and dumped the Hungarians into the murky waters of the play-offs.
Holland fell to a 3-2 defeat against the Czech Republic as a miserable campaign ended in failure.
The Dutch knew only victory would do in the Amsterdam Arena and even then they needed third-placed Turkey to lose to Iceland to clinch third place themselves and a play-off spot in Group A.
Neither happened, and there's no chance of them repeating their 2-0 play-off success over Jack Charlton's Irish side at Anfield back in 1996.
The draw for the Euro 2016 play-offs will be made on Sunday (live on RTÉ Player from 10.15am).
