Seeds of hope for France 2016

Ireland need to beat Kazakhstan at the Aviva Stadium tomorrow night if they are to be in with a chance of being second seeds in the draw for the qualifying rounds for the Euro 2016 finals in France.

But the Irish would also need a couple of other results on the final night of current World Cup qualifying to go their way, their status as second seeds being contingent upon Slovenia failing to win in Switzerland in Group C and Turkey failing to beat Holland at home in Group D.

In the event that the Turks don’t pick up points against the runaway group winners, Romania would be in the World Cup play-offs but so long as they don’t win both legs, they cannot dislodge Ireland.

If Turkey do make the play-offs, they would have to win one of the two legs to overhaul the Irish in the race to be second seeds for the next European Championship qualifying campaign.

The national coefficients by which the UEFA ranking for the 2016 qualifying draw is determined include the results of the qualifying matches and finals for Euro 2012 and the qualifying matches for World Cup 2014.