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The UEFA second round will be contested by the best eight runners-up from the nine first round groups. The winners of each of four home and away ties will join the group winners in the World Cup finals in South Africa. The matches will be played on 14 and 18 November 2009, with a draw for the ties to be held in Zürich on 19 October.
In September 2009, FIFA announced that they would be seeding teams for the play-off draw. Previously they had indicated that there would be no seeding.[1] At the time of the decision, countries in play-off positions included Germany, France and Portugal. The lack of a decision on seeding until late in the tournament lead some to suggest that FIFA were waiting to see which teams were in the play-offs before declaring the rules of the tournament. Commenting on this matter, Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given said:
It’s totally unfair on us smaller nations. If they say that before a ball is kicked then at least you know the picture, you know exactly where you stand but to change it now is absolutely ridiculous and I don’t think it’s right at all.[2].
Sports Illustrated gave the opinion that: FIFA is pretty much changing the rules halfway through the qualifying tournament.[3]
The eight teams will be seeded according to the world rankings to be released on 16 October. The top four teams will be seeded into one pot, with the bottom four teams seeded into a second. A separate draw will be conducted between each matchup, to decide who will host the first leg.[4]
Ranking of group runners-up
With one group having one team fewer than the others, matches against the sixth-placed team in the group are not included in this ranking.
The European zone of qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup saw 53 teams competing for 13 places at the finals in South Africa. The qualification process started on 20 August 2008, nearly two months after the end of UEFA Euro 2008, and ended on 18 November 2009. The qualification process saw the first competitive matches of Montenegro.
Teams were drawn into eight groups of six teams and one group of five teams. The nine group winners qualified directly, while the best eight second-placed teams contested home and away play off matches for the remaining four places. In determining the best eight second placed teams, the results against teams finishing last in the six team groups were not counted for consistency between the five and six team groups.[5]
Seeding
After initially proposing to use a similar system to recent World Cup and European Championship qualification (based on results across the previous two European qualification cycles), the UEFA Executive Committee decided on 27 September 2007 at its meeting in Istanbul that seeding for the qualifiers would be based on FIFA World Rankings, in accordance with the FIFA World Cup regulations (which note that where teams are ranked on "performance" criteria, the FIFA World Rankings must be used).[6]
The November 2007 FIFA World Ranking the most recent at the time of the preliminary draw and used to determine the groups. Initially scheduled for 21 November, FIFA moved the release date of the ranking to 23 November to include the final match days of Euro 2008 qualification.[7]
The draw for the group stage took place in Durban, South Africa on 25 November 2007.[8] During the draw, teams were drawn from the six pots A to F (see above) into the nine groups below, starting with pot F, which filled position 6 in the groups, then continued with pot E filling position 5, pot D in position 4 and so on.[9]
Summary
Table – top row: group winners, second row: group runners-up, third row: others. The winner of each group qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup together with the winners of the play-off. The play-offs took place between the eight best runners-up among all nine groups while the worst group runner-up did not qualify.
Because one group had one team fewer than the others, matches against the sixth placed team in each group were not included in this ranking. As a result, eight matches played by each team counted for the purposes of the second placed table.
The UEFA second round will be contested by the best eight runners-up from the nine first round groups. The winners of each of four home and away ties will join the group winners in the World Cup finals in South Africa. The matches will be played on 14 and 18 November 2009, with a draw for the ties to be held in Zürich on 19 October.
In September 2009, FIFA announced that they would be seeding teams for the play-off draw. Previously they had indicated that there would be no seeding.[11] At the time of the decision, countries in play-off positions included Germany, France and Portugal. The lack of a decision on seeding until late in the tournament lead some to suggest that FIFA were waiting to see which teams were in the play-offs before declaring the rules of the tournament. Commenting on this matter, Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given said:
It’s totally unfair on us smaller nations. If they say that before a ball is kicked then at least you know the picture, you know exactly where you stand but to change it now is absolutely ridiculous and I don’t think it’s right at all.[12].
Sports Illustrated gave the opinion that: FIFA is pretty much changing the rules halfway through the qualifying tournament.[13]
The eight teams will be seeded according to the world rankings to be released on 16 October. The top four teams will be seeded into one pot, with the bottom four teams seeded into a second. A separate draw will be conducted between each matchup, to decide who will host the first leg.[14]
The matches will be played on 14 and 18 November 2009, with a draw for the ties to be held in Zürich on 19 October. The eight teams are seeded according to the FIFA World Rankings released on 16 October. The top four teams will be seeded into one pot, with the bottom four teams seeded into a second. A separate draw will be conducted between each matchup, to decide who will host the first leg.[15]
^"Preliminary Draw Information"(PDF). FIFA.com. Zurich: Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 22 November 2007. Archived from the original(PDF) on 11 September 2008. Retrieved 21 June 2009.
The UEFA second round (often referred to as the play off stage) was contested by the best eight runners up from the nine first round groups. The winners of each of four home and away ties joined the group winners in the World Cup finals in South Africa. Norway, with 10 points, was ranked 9th so failed to qualify for the second round.
Seeding and draw
The eight teams were seeded according to the FIFA World Rankings released on 16 October (shown in parentheses in the table below). The draw for the ties was held in Zürich on 19 October, with the top four teams seeded into one pot and the bottom four teams seeded into a second. A separate draw decided the host of the first leg.[1]
^"Key Decisions Reached in Rio". FIFA.com. Rio de Janeiro: Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 29 September 2009. Archived from the original on 3 October 2009. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
The matches will be played on 14 and 18 November 2009, with a draw for the ties to be held in Zürich on 19 October. The eight teams are seeded according to the FIFA World Rankings released on 16 October. The top four teams will be seeded into one pot, with the bottom four teams seeded into a second. A separate draw will be conducted between each matchup, to decide who will host the first leg.[1]
Theofanis Gekas
