After last week's impressive play-off victory over Belgium, the Republic of Ireland will learn their World Cup fate tomorrow.
The draw for the 2027 World Cup qualifiers takes place at midday on Tuesday, and what we know already is that Carla Ward's side secured a play-off place, at worst, for the tournament in Brazil thanks to Abbie Larkin's late goal in Leuven.
Sixteen teams will enter the League A qualification process, with the four group winners qualifying automatically for the tournament.
The fixtures will take place next year, ending in June, with a start date of March, with the Girls in Green facing each team twice, home and away.
As with recent campaigns, big draws might see the three games taking place at Aviva Stadium or Páirc Uí Chaoimh, rather than Tallaght Stadium.
These are the elite countries of European soccer, so whoever Ireland ends up drawing, it's going to be a big ask.
Big names coming to Dublin or Cork next year
Of the 16 sides, Slovenia, Serbia and Ukraine are in pot 4 alongside Ireland, so they can't meet at this stage of the process.
But who can Ireland face?
Pot 1 contains France, Germany, Sweden and world champions Spain.
In one of the team's best post-2023 results, Ireland beat France at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in July of last year, having lost 1-0 to them away from home three months previously
In the same Euro 2025 qualifying campaign, Ireland lost twice to Sweden, including a heavy 3-0 defeat in Dublin. In qualifying for the last World Cup, they did manage a critical 1-1 draw against the Swedes in Gothenburg back in April 2022.
Back-to-back European Champions England are in pot 2, alongside Italy, Norway and the Netherlands.
Ireland were beaten twice by the Lionesses in Euro 2025 qualifying, and they might be the one side of the quartet that Carla Ward will want to avoid.
Pot 3, meanwhile, contains Denmark, Austria, Iceland and Poland.
It's worth noting that only two of Sweden, Norway and Iceland can be drawn in a group together due to what UEFA calls 'Winter venue restrictions'.
Essentially, due to the risk of 'severe' cold weather intervening in games taking place in those countries, and the risk of schedules being thrown off, groups would be rearranged if the third country was drawn out.
It very likely won't happen, but it's one to bear in mind.
Play-off Routes to Brazil
If Ireland can't win their group, then finishing in second or third place will give them a slightly more straightforward route in the first round of the play-offs. This is path 1.
Those teams will face a side from League C - six winners, or two best-placed runners-up - in the first round of the play-off, and they will have their home leg second in both rounds of the play-off.
The team that finishes fourth will be playing one of the second and third placed teams from League B and will also be relegated back to the second tier for the 2027 Nations League. This is path 2.
The winners from both paths will then play against one another in the second round of the play-offs.
All fairly straightforward, although there's a 'but'.
There will be eight round two play-off winners, but only seven will join the League A winners in qualifying for the World Cup, thus giving us 11 guaranteed European places on offer.
The eighth winner, whose ranking will be decided by their finishing place overall in the qualifiers, will face an inter-continental play-off in February 2027. As a nation, we do have fond memories of the inter-continental play-off, which saw the men's team defeat Iran to qualify for South Korea and Japan.
With Ireland competing in League A, they have an advantage in overall rankings over the sides who are competing in Leagues B, C and D, although all of that is a long way away yet.
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