As one of the top four best runners-up teams among eight in the European World Cup qualifying zone, Ukraine will either face France, Sweden, Iceland or Romania in the knockout stage after FIFA, the world soccer governing body, released its world rankings on Oct. 17.
The playoff stage pits the four
highest-placed nations in the October FIFA world rankings being seeded for the
two-legged playoffs to take place on Nov. 15 and Nov. 19.
The playoff draw will take place in Zurich
on Oct. 21 with Portugal, Greece and Croatia being the other seeded national
teams.
The four winners will join the nine other
teams that automatically qualified for the world soccer tournament taking place
in Brazil next year: Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, England,
Switzerland, Bosnia, and Russia.
Ukraine lost to France and narrowly evaded
Sweden in last year’s European soccer championship that it co-hosted with
Poland. Romania and Iceland are the two lowest ranked teams among the eight,
holding the 19th and 26th place in Europe, respectively.
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
