The UEFA second round was contested by the best eight runners-up from the nine first-round groups from the UEFA segment of the qualification tournament for the

2010 FIFA World Cup The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. ...

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. The winners of each of four home and away ties joined the group winners in the World Cup in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. The matches, which are often referred to as 'play-offs', were played on 14 and 18 November 2009. The draw for the ties was held in

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on 19 October, with the teams drawn by South African player Steven Pienaar.

Qualification

The eight best runners-up from the UEFA first round qualified for the play-offs. 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.

Seeding and draw

In September 2009,

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

announced that they would be seeding teams for the play-off draw. The eight eventual qualifiers were seeded according to the world rankings released on 16 October 2009. The top four teams were placed into one pot, with the bottom four teams placed into a second. A separate draw was conducted between each matchup to decide the host of the first leg.

Seeding controversy

Seeding using FIFA ranks was used at a similar stage in the 2006 qualification. However, it was claimed that FIFA had indicated that there would be no seeding this time. At the time of the decision, countries in play-off positions included

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

also had not yet qualified (their last remaining match was away to

). The lack of a decision on seeding until late in the tournament led 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,

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...

goalkeeper

Shay Given Séamus John James Given (born 20 April 1976) is an Irish former professional Association football, footballer who played as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper. Widely regarded as one of the greatest Irish goalkeepers of all time ...

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.'' ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with a circulation of over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellen ...

'''s Gabriele Marcotti gave the opinion that "FIFA is pretty much changing the rules halfway through the qualifying tournament."

Seedings

The eight teams were seeded according to the

FIFA World Rankings The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, first introduced in December 1992. The men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their gam ...

released on 16 October (shown in parentheses in the table below).

Matches

''France won 2–1 on aggregate.''
Ireland officially asked

for the second leg to be replayed after Thierry Henry clearly handled the ball twice during the build-up to the French goal. This request was denied. Ireland eventually pursued legal action against FIFA over the decision before ultimately receiving a €5 million settlement. ---- ''Portugal won 2–0 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Greece won 1–0 on aggregate.'' ---- ''2–2 on aggregate; Slovenia won on away goals.''
After the game, Russian fans followed the Republic of Ireland's lead. They demanded a replay of their World Cup qualification play-off against Slovenia on the official site of

.Now Russia try call for play-off replay over ref blunders and 'knife attack'
/ref> However, there was not any reaction from FIFA on this event.

Goalscorers

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:World Cup Play-offs

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

2009 in Republic of Ireland association football 2009 in Russian football

2009–10 in Bosnia and Herzegovina football 2009–10 in Ukrainian football

November 2009 in sports