Greek tragedy may help Ireland’s fate in play-off seeding

LATVIA’S visit to Greece next weekend could yet transform the Republic of Ireland into top seeds for the World Cup play-offs in November.

The Group Two clash in Athens on Saturday week has emerged as a key piece in the moving jigsaw that is the Europe Zone qualifying competition, following FIFA’s decision on Tuesday to seed the eight best runners-up according to their Official World Ranking for the play-off draw on October 19.

Ireland’s sudden interest in the Greece v Latvia match is easily explained. The teams are level, three points behind leaders Switzerland with two matches to play. Greece are ahead on goal difference.

But while Greece stand 12th in the FIFA World Ranking, Latvia lie in 58th place. So if the Latvians can deprive Greece of second place, Ireland’s ranking of 38 would suddenly lift Giovanni Trapattoni’s team into the top four seeds beside Russia, France and Croatia, even though Latvia’s own ranking would improve considerably.

This all assumes, of course, that Ireland come second to Italy and finish among the eight best runners-up. It also requires Sweden to retain second place in Group One despite Portugal’s storming finish.

The recent form of Greece and Latvia gives grounds for guarded optimism that the Latvians might win in Athens. Greece have faltered after a bright start to Group Two, and were held to a draw by bottom team Moldova in their last match.

Latvia have improved after a slow start and scored a superb 1-0 win away to Israel last month. Manager Aleksandrs Starkovs is drawing inspiration from his team’s last-gasp qualification for the final stages of Euro 2004.

And if Latvia triumph in Greece, they will fully expect to beat Moldova in Riga in their final match. As long as Switzerland take four points from their final two matches (away to Luxembourg and at home to Israel), Starkovs’ team will finish in second place, to Ireland’s potential benefit.

Ireland boss Giovanni Trapattoni claims he is not perturbed by the fact his team may face one of Europe’s elite nations in the play-offs, however.

“We are concentrating on the next two games at home to Italy and Montenegro and are not taking anything for granted,” said Trapattoni.

“But being in a tough Group Eight qualifying group containing World Cup holders Italy, we are more than capable of making life difficult for any of Europe’s big sides.”

And FAI chief executive John Delaney remains optimistic about Ireland’s chances in spite of the revised seeding system.

“We’ve got to try and beat Italy and take it to the last game. And if we end up in the play-offs, we’d have been delighted to have got to the play-offs at the start of the group and we’ll take what we get.”

He added: “All I will say is that and team who finishes second mustn’t have been top team in their group, obviously. So it gives you a chance.”