2023-10-16 15:18:51
Why do Ireland need to lose to Netherlands in Euro qualifiers to have a chance of qualifying?
The Republic of Ireland national team faces a strange scenario, as its hopes of qualifying for the 2024 European Championships will actually be strengthened if it loses to the Netherlands next month.
Coach Stephen Kenny’s team suffered a severe blow last Friday, when it lost to Greece by two unanswered goals at home in the qualifiers.
This is Ireland’s fifth defeat in six matches, leaving it in fourth place in Group B, six points behind third-placed Netherlands, nine behind second-placed Greece and 15 behind leaders France.
The Irish national team will meet its counterpart, Gibraltar, on Monday, and they already know that their place in the playoff is not within their reach, and that their hopes of automatically qualifying in the group are over.
According to a report by the British newspaper “The Sun” on Monday, the dream of reaching the European Championship this summer in Germany has not yet ended for Ireland for a very strange reason.
The report stated that qualification for the Euro will also include the results of the Nations League competition, where 12 teams (the best ranked in the Nations League and failed to qualify directly for Euro 2024) will compete in the European Nations Championship qualifiers on March 21 and 26, 2024, where three of them will receive a ticket to the continental championship. (6 teams qualify from the 12 matches once morest each other, and then three finals will be played).
This means that there can be no more than seven teams above Ireland in the Nations League standings that will fail to qualify automatically from the groups, and the Netherlands are one of the teams above Ireland in the Nations League standings, meaning it would be beneficial for Stephen Kenny’s men to The Orange national team qualifies directly alongside France, ahead of Greece, as the latter is ranked lower than the Irish.
So Ireland’s defeat by the Netherlands, on 18 November in the final qualifiers, would provide an additional place for Ireland, and a win would almost certainly deny them their chance of qualifying, given the difficult position they would find themselves in in the group.
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