{"id":392493,"date":"2025-11-20T15:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/392493\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T15:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:32:13","slug":"world-cup-2026-play-off-draw-italy-vs-northern-ireland-jamaica-learn-path-to-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/392493\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026 play-off draw: Italy vs Northern Ireland, Jamaica learn path to finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Italy will host Northern Ireland in the 2026 World Cup play-off semi-final, with the victors to visit Wales or Bosnia &amp; Herzegovina in the final stage.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, the Republic of Ireland will travel to Czech Republic and will host the winners of Denmark\u2019s tie against North Macedonia.<\/p>\n<p>In the inter-confederation play-offs, Jamaica will play New Caledonia ahead of a potential play-off final against DR Congo, with Iraq playing the winners of Bolivia against Suriname.<\/p>\n<p>The European play-offs consist of eight single-leg semi-finals and four finals, of which the four winners will advance to next year\u2019s finals in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>The draw has been divided into fourth paths, featuring one team from each of the four seeded pots, with the winners of each path semi-final facing each other in a final.<\/p>\n<p>The semi-finals and finals will be played on March 26 and 31 respectively.<\/p>\n<p><strong>European play-off semi-final draw:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Path A<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Italy vs Northern Ireland<\/li>\n<li>Wales vs Bosnia &amp; Herzegovina<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Winner of Wales vs Bosnia &amp; Herzegovina with home advantage in final<\/p>\n<p><strong>Path B<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ukraine vs Sweden<\/li>\n<li>Poland vs Albania<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Winner of Ukraine vs Sweden with home advantage in final<\/p>\n<p><strong>Path C<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Turkey vs Romania<\/li>\n<li>Slovakia vs Kosovo<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Winner of Slovakia vs Kosovo with home advantage in final<\/p>\n<p><strong>Path D<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Denmark vs North Macedonia<\/li>\n<li>Czech Republic vs Republic of Ireland<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Winner of Czech Republic vs Republic of Ireland with home advantage in final<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6823031\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/UEFA.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Inter-confederation play-off draw:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>DR Congo and Iraq, the two highest FIFA-ranked sides, have been seeded and move straight into the final of their separate pathways. They will each face a winner of the semi-final draw to determine a place in the finals.<\/p>\n<p>Jamaica and Suriname have been kept apart due to both being members of the same federation (Concacaf).<\/p>\n<p>The matches will be played across the final week in March in Guadalajara and Monterrey, Mexico, respectively.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Semi-finals:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New Caledonia vs Jamaica (winners to play DR Congo)<\/li>\n<li>Bolivia vs Suriname (winners to play Iraq)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Finals:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>DR Congo vs Winner of semi-final 1<\/li>\n<li>Iraq vs Winner of semi-final 2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How did the European draw work?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Europe has historically been allocated the most slots at the World Cup, and the expansion from a 32- to a 48-team tournament sees the number go from 11 to 16.<\/p>\n<p>In the qualification phase, nations were divided into six groups of four and six groups of five teams, with the group winners qualifying automatically.<\/p>\n<p>England, Portugal, Norway, Croatia, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Scotland, and the Netherlands all qualified directly as group winners.<\/p>\n<p>The 12 group runners-up qualified for the play-off system, in which they have been joined by the four highest-ranked 2024-25 Nations League group winners that finished outside the top two of their qualifying group (based on their Nations League interim overall ranking).<\/p>\n<p>Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Kosovo, Wales, Republic of Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine all reached the play-offs through their second-place group finishes.<\/p>\n<p>Romania, Sweden, Northern Ireland and North Macedonia all reached the play-offs courtesy of their Nations League performance.<\/p>\n<p>The play-offs were decided by seeding pots in line with FIFA rankings, with teams from pot one drawn at home against teams from pot four, while teams from pot two hosting a team from pot three in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p>Each of the four play-off paths will feature one team from each pot, with the semi-final winners from those paths facing each other in that pathway\u2019s final.<\/p>\n<p>As part of UEFA\u2019s scheduling, losing semi-finalists will face a friendly match against each other on the day of the path finals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What about the inter-confederation play-offs?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are two remaining non-European World Cup spots, which will be decided by the six-team inter-confederation play-offs, consisting of DR Congo, New Caledonia, Bolivia, Iraq, Jamaica\u00a0and Suriname.<\/p>\n<p>Two nations, DR Congo and Iraq, were seeded and automatically advanced to the finals on separate paths. The remaining four teams were unseeded.<\/p>\n<p>The unseeded teams will consist of a pair of single-leg semi-finals, with the two winners advancing to the finals. The two final winners will be the 47th and 48th nations at the 2026 men\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>The play-offs will be held in March in Mexico, though exact dates have yet to be confirmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy will host Northern Ireland in the 2026 World Cup play-off semi-final, with the victors to visit Wales&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":392494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[61150,82387,14609,148962,2842,2219,18155,186534,10795,123,186533,10293,6313,7760,50759,221,62,129,24922,273,67,132,68,32405],"class_list":{"0":"post-392493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-albania","9":"tag-bolivia","10":"tag-czech-republic","11":"tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","12":"tag-international-football","13":"tag-italy","14":"tag-jamaica","15":"tag-north-macedonia","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-poland","18":"tag-republic-of-ireland","19":"tag-romania","20":"tag-scotland","21":"tag-serie-a","22":"tag-slovakia","23":"tag-soccer","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-sweden","26":"tag-turkey","27":"tag-ukraine","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115582753323904943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}