WHEN IS THE DRAW?
The draw for the World Cup play-off is on Thursday at 12pm in Switzerland. It will be live on RTÉ platforms. More details will be confirmed shortly.
FORMAT
There will be 16 teams chasing the last four European spots. The play-off consists of a semi-final and final. Each round is a single leg.
The 12 group runners-up from World Cup qualifying and the four best-ranked UEFA Nations League section winners that have not already qualified will be in the draw.
The 16 teams will be drawn into four play-off paths, with four teams in each, making up two semi-finals and a final.
Each play-off path is composed of two semi-final pairings of one seeded team and one unseeded team: pot 1 versus pot 4 and pot 2 versus pot 3.
WHEN ARE THE MATCHES?
The semi-final will be on Thursday 26 March. If Ireland progress to the final, Tuesday 31 March is the date.
WHAT COUNTRIES CAN IRELAND FACE?
We need to wait for the qualification process to finish over the next 48 hours.
Italy, Czech Republic and Albania are in the hat at the moment and Poland are likely to follow. The rest will be decided by the games to be played on Sunday and Monday.
Romania, Sweden and Northern Ireland will also be there due to their Nations League performance, along with one more side. As it stands, Wales look the most likely, but they could also become a runner-up and open the door to another team.
HOW DOES THE DRAW WORK?
The 12 group runners-up will be allocated to Pots 1 to 3, with seeding based on FIFA ranking to determine the order.
Pot 1 and 2 will be home teams as seeds.
Pot 3 are unseeded and away from home along with Pot 4, which are the Nations League teams. So if Ireland are unseeded, we will not be playing a Nations League-qualified side.
WILL THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND BE SEEDED?
Due to the Republic of Ireland being 62nd in the world when this window started, it's up in the air and needs some things to fall our way.
The Boys in Green would need to be in the top 7 of the 12 runners-up. We won't know for sure until FIFA issue new rankings on Wednesday when the seedings are confirmed as our wins over Portugal and Hungary will move us up.
There are crucial games on Monday and Tuesday to determine it.
COULD IRELAND PLAY AT HOME?
It all depends on our pot. We'll be at home if it's Pot 2 and away from home if Pot 3.
We could be at home in the final. There will be a draw for the home finalists on Thursday following the semi-final draw. One semi-final tie from each of the four paths will be selected as a home finalist.
AND IF WE REACHED THE WORLD CUP?
The draw for the World Cup outright will be made on 5 December, before the play-off matches take place.
Therefore we'll know what our group would be and the cities we would play in. The carrot will be well and truly dangled.
A total of 48 teams are competing in the 2026 World Cup, divided into 12 groups of four.
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