And other reasons why the playoff qualification mechanism seems to have been written by Christopher Nolan.
If you’re a fan of football trivia and oddities, “Barbados-Grenada 4-2” should ring a bell in your head. For those who are looking at the screen in confusion wondering what a match between Caribbean teams has to do with the 2024 European Championships, I will summarize briefly: at the 1994 Caribbean Cup there is no draw in the group stage, but the golden goal was introduced , which is worth double. In the last match of the three-team group, Barbados and Grenada face each other, with the former having to win by two goals to go through. In the 87th minute, however, the result was only 2-1 for the Barbadians.
At that point, however, one thing happens: Barbados realizes that by going to extra time they would have another half hour to score a goal that would be worth double and would not give their opponents a chance to reply and therefore scored an own goal. After the initial shock, Grenada understands the game their opponents are playing and adapts, starting to attack both goals indiscriminately. On the other hand, the Barbados players did not sit idle and began to defend both of them for the remaining minutes of regular time, giving rise to one of the most absurd situations ever seen on a football pitch.
Barbados’ strategy will later prove successful, but this is not the story we need to focus on today, but one much closer to us, in space and time. In fact, almost thirty years later, a similar situation could arise in the qualifiers for the 2024 European Championships, although not at those levels of absurdity: Ireland paradoxically has a better chance of qualifying for next spring’s playoffs by losing against the Netherlands rather than beating them in the match on November 18th. Sounds strange right? But that’s exactly how it is, and it’s the fault of the playoff qualification mechanism, which seems to have been born from the mind of Christopher Nolan.
How do you qualify for the playoffs?
Before going into the detail of the paradoxical case of Ireland, however, we must understand how the bizarre mechanism works that leads teams to qualify for the three mini-tournaments next spring, which since the last edition have replaced the traditional playoffs with home and away matches . Each of these features four teams, who clash in the semi-finals and final in a single match, thus determining the names of the last three national teams to qualify for Germany 2024. The twelve participants in this last phase of the qualifiers are, however, not decided by the ranking of the groups that are being played during this national break, but rather from the results obtained during the 2022/23 Nations League. Ideally, the top four from League A, League B and League C are entitled to participate in the playoffs.
However, as is natural, many of the teams that occupy the valid places to qualify for the playoffs have obtained or will obtain direct access to the European Championship via the qualifying groups. And what happens then? You scroll through the league rankings until you find a team that is not already certain of being qualified for Germany 2024, which – if for League B and C it is already sufficient to fill the four boxes – for League A it is very likely not will resolve the situation. At that point a hole is plugged by the best placed in League D – which for this edition is Estonia – but it may still be necessary to fill some spaces.
To do this, you then scroll through the general Nations League ranking, regardless of the league the teams belong to, picking out the national teams that have not already qualified for the European Championship but which have not even won their Nations League group. If after this process it turns out that a league has more than four eligible teams, those finishing in second place or lower go through a draw that determines which qualifying path they will participate in, given that they will not be able to plug holes in the playoffs of the leagues below them. Clear, right?
Why is Ireland better off losing?
Here we are finally in our Ireland. THE Boys in Green they are currently fourth in their qualifying group – which also includes France, Greece, the Netherlands and the Faroe Islands – and with 6 points under their belt they are already mathematically excluded from the race for direct qualification. They can therefore only focus on the playoffs, but the third place achieved in their League B group does not guarantee them a certain place among the twelve participants. The last hope is, therefore, to return to that enormous cauldron of rediscovered teams which will then be sorted between the playoffs of League A and those of League B.
Among the teams that can free up space for subsequent moves are the Netherlands, who won their Nations League group last season and who currently share the Euro 2024 qualifying group with Ireland. Together with them, as we have said, there is also Greece, which also won its Nations League group, but in League C, thus “blocking” its possible playoff slot in that particular path. The Netherlands and Greece are the two teams still in contention for a direct pass into qualifying Group B, and it’s clear that Ireland knows who to support: the Netherlands’ second place would free up a place in the playoffs, Greece’s would not.
However, in the first leg the result between Ireland and the Netherlands was 2-0 for the Oranje.
The island national team’s next qualifying match sees them directly opposite the team they must hope will qualify, so a defeat would bring Ireland closer to the European Championships than a victory could. However, the qualification of the Netherlands – which seems quite obvious, given that they will close the group with the match in Gibraltar – would not be enough to make the Irish’s dreams come true. For Ireland to play in the playoffs next March, all League A teams that can do so must qualify directly for the European Championships, i.e. 14 out of 16 (Czech Republic/Poland and Wales/Croatia exclude each other ) and in League B, Israel, Serbia, Scotland (already qualified), Iceland and one between Finland and Slovenia should do so.
With these results there would be one place available in the playoffs of League A (the other void is occupied by Estonia) and three in those of League B, since one of these is already from Bosnia-Herzegovina, certain of not obtaining the direct pass to Germany. These four places would therefore be divided up by Ukraine, Norway, Slovenia and, of course, Ireland. For Ireland to come into play, however, a precise combination of results in Group J must occur (in addition to Israel’s not-so-obvious qualification). In fact, Iceland should score six points in their last two matches, also going on to win in Lisbon, while Slovakia should score zero, all while Luxembourg emerges with four or fewer points from the matches with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Liechtenstein.
Alternatively, there would also be a second, even more complex combination of results, which in any case involves the direct qualification of Israel and Serbia and twelve teams from League A. In fact, Ireland would reach the playoffs even if Finland and Slovenia both qualified at the expense of Denmark and Ukraine overtook Italy in its group. At that point Denmark and Italy would occupy two slots in the League A path – eliminating poor Estonia from the playoffs – and joining Bosnia-Herzegovina in the League B play-offs would be Iceland, Norway and, indeed, Ireland.
So who’s going to these playoffs?
As you may have understood, the system that determines the twelve chosen is quite cumbersome and it is equally difficult to predict without making complex calculations which teams will compete for the last three places on German soil in March. At the moment, the only two teams that are 100% sure of their participation in the playoffs in their respective league – as winners of the Nations League group and already certain of not finishing among the top two of their qualifying group for the European Championships – are Bosnia -Herzegovina in the League B path and Georgia in the League C path. For the other ten places, as in a domino, the qualification or otherwise of one national team can change the fate of all the others.
NEW: EURO 2024 Qualifying Projections (16 October)
Austria 🇦🇹 has qualified while Netherlands 🇳🇱 and Slovakia 🇸🇰 pick up enormous wins. pic.twitter.com/u1fIPlvpFq
— We Global Football (@We_Global) October 16, 2023
To have the most realistic picture possible of the teams participating in the playoffs, all that remains is to rely on probability. To help us in this regard is Twitter, where the account We Global Football after each qualifying evening it simulates all the remaining matches 2500 times, obtaining 2500 possible scenarios. From the data thus obtained, it appears that Greece, Luxembourg and Kazakhstan are practically certain to join Georgia in the playoffs of League C, just as Estonia can substantially begin to prepare to occupy a place in League A. The probability that Poland will keep the Estonians company, like that of Iceland occupying one of the free places between League A and B, dealing a heavy blow to Ireland’s dreams.
Making all the necessary conjurations, with a probability of playing the playoffs of around 80% we find Ukraine, who like Iceland should wait for the draw to find out their rivals. With lower probabilities – but still above 50% – we find Wales, who would play their chances in the League A playoffs, Finland and Norway, who would keep company with the aforementioned Ukraine and Iceland. Israel, Croatia, Italy (20% probability), Slovenia, Switzerland and – with very low percentages – Hungary, the Netherlands, Denmark, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Azerbaijan, Ireland and Kosovo can still end up in the playoffs in various ways. Of the teams mentioned, the Netherlands, Croatia, Italy, Denmark, Israel, Serbia, Finland, Greece, Kazakhstan and Luxembourg are certain to have the playoff parachute available in case of failure to qualify.
That issue of Barbados and Grenada doesn’t seem so complex now, does it?