Ireland need to join big guns - December 12, 2000
The draw for the European section of the Women's World Cup qualifiers took place on Monday which gave Ireland an outside chance of progressing into the top echelons of the women's game.
Ireland cannot qualify for the finals - only five teams will manage this - but the Irish can put themselves in a position to qualify for the next competition.
The women's qualifying tournaments work much differently than the men's. Instead of every country getting a chance to qualify for finals tournaments, the women have to move up the seedings before their time comes.
Ireland at the moment are counted as a second-strength team and as a consequence they need to win their group for a chance of moving up with the first-strength teams.
This will not be easily achieved as Ireland have drawn Yugoslavia, Moldova and Greece in Group 6. The winner of the group will play one of the last-placed teams from Groups 1-4 and the winner of this game will earn a first-strength seeding.
Yugoslavia will go into Group 6 as overwhelming favourites to finish top. They were one of the seeded teams but lost their place in the first seeding when they were surprisingly beaten by the Czech Republic over two legs.
Here lies a line of form to the Irish. Ireland faced the Czechs in qualifying for Euro 2001 and lost 4-0 to them in Arklow. The Czechs went on to win the group and this led to a showdown with Yugoslavia for top seeding for the next qualifying competition. The Czechs took their chance and now they will rub noses with the big guns. Ireland should learn from this.