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 2018 FIFA World Cup final tournament. The winners —

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, Sweden, and Switzerland — of each of four home and away ties joined the group winners in the World Cup in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. These pairs of matches, also commonly known as the playoffs, were held in November 2017. The losers were

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

and

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

. The draw for the ties was held in

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on 17 October 2017, with the October 2017

FIFA World Rankings The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, led by Brazil . The teams of the men's member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their game results with the ...

being used in deciding which of the teams would be seeded.

Qualified teams

The eight best runners-up from the UEFA First Round qualified for the play-offs; at the time of the draw, with two groups having one team fewer than the others, matches against the sixth-placed team in each First Round group were discarded in this ranking even after the admission of

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and

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...

, and with all groups now containing six teams. As a result, eight matches played by each team counted for the purposes of ranking the runners-up.

Ranking of the runner-up teams

The eight best runners-up were determined by the following parameters, in this order: # Highest number of points # Goal difference # Highest number of goals scored # Fair play points # Drawing of lots

Seeding and draw

The second round draw took place on 17 October 2017 at 14:00 CEST (

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), at the FIFA headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland. Teams were seeded based on October 2017

(shown below in brackets), with each tie seeing a seeded team drawn against an unseeded team. Each tie's order of legs was decided as part of the draw. The draw was conducted by Mexican TV presenter Vanessa Huppenkothen with the assistance of former Spain international Fernando Hierro.

Playoffs

The first legs were played on 9–11 November, and the second legs were played on 12–14 November 2017. Times are

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(

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) as listed by UEFA (local times are in parentheses). Switzerland won 1–0 on aggregate and qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. ----

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won 4–1 on aggregate and qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. ----

won 5–1 on aggregate and qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. ---- Sweden won 1–0 on aggregate and qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Goalscorers

There were 13 goals scored in 8 matches, for an average of goals per match. ;3 goals *

Christian Eriksen Christian Dannemann Eriksen (born 14 February 1992) is a Danish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Premier League club Manchester United and the Denmark national team. He is renowned for his vision, technique, passing, and fre ...

;1 goal *

Nikola Kalinić Nikola Kalinić (; born 5 January 1988) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Croatian club Hajduk Split. Kalinić began his career with Hajduk Split in his native Croatia before moving to English club Blackburn Rove ...

* Andrej Kramarić *

Luka Modrić Luka Modrić (; born 9 September 1985) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for La Liga club Real Madrid and captains the Croatia national team. He plays mainly as a central midfielder, but can also play as an a ...

Ivan Perišić Ivan Perišić (; born 2 February 1989) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and the Croatia national team. Usually deployed as a winger, he has also featured as an attacking midfielder, se ...

* Nicklas Bendtner * Andreas Christensen * Sokratis Papastathopoulos *

Shane Duffy Shane Patrick Michael Duffy (born 1 January 1992) is an Irish professional footballer who plays as a defender for club Fulham and the Republic of Ireland national team. Duffy came through the youth academy at Everton, where he completed hi ...

* Jakob Johansson * Ricardo Rodríguez

Discipline

A player was automatically suspended for the next match for the following offences: * Receiving a red card (red card suspensions could be extended for serious offences) * Receiving two yellow cards in two different matches (yellow card suspensions were carried forward to the play-offs, but not the finals or any other future international matches) The following suspensions were served during the qualifying matches:

References

External links

*
Qualifiers – Europe: Round 2
FIFA.com

UEFA.com {{DEFAULTSORT:World Cup

play-off The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

2017–18 in Greek football 2017–18 in Italian football 2017 in Republic of Ireland association football 2017–18 in Northern Ireland association football 2017 in Swedish football Switzerland at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Croatia at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Denmark at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Sweden at the 2018 FIFA World Cup November 2017 sports events in Europe