France vs. Ireland Highlights UEFA World Cup Playoffs

Update: Follow France vs. Ireland live blog.

Most of the intrigue that could have resulted from Monday's draw for the second-place playoffs for the final four 2010 World Cup berths from Europe was eliminated when it was decided the eight remaining nations would be broken up and seeded via their FIFA ranks near the end of the qualification process.

So instead of creating some possible Cinderella scenarios from smaller nations like Slovenia or Bosnia-Herzegovina would have a good chance to qualify for their first World Cup, the underdogs now face an uphill battle. This is no more the case than for the Republic of Ireland, which must played a wounded, yet still very dangerous France team next month.

Ireland and boss Giovanni Trapattoni should have a beef with the way UEFA broke down the seedings. Ireland did finish its qualifying campaign without a loss, only to finish runners up to defending World Cup champ Italy. Now the Irish must play France -- which struggled throughout qualification -- but is still features some of the best players in the world.

The three other unseeded teams probably feel like the Irish. They fight through difficult qualifying campaigns, but then with two rounds left, find out the playoffs will in fact be "seeded."

So this leaves another struggler -- Portugal -- with a good chance to advance to South Africa as it faces Bosnia in a home-and-home series played on Nov. 14 and 18.

The other two matchups pit Russia against Slovenia and Greece vs. Ukraine.

Still for any complaining, all the underdogs need to do is get results over two matches, which isn't impossible. And whenever you link the words "soccer" and "draw" there is almost always going to be some sort of conspiracy angle.

Overall, the World Cup picture is almost complete. Aside from the UEFA playoffs, there still remains the Asian/Oceanic playoff between Bahrain and New Zealand and the CONCACAF/COMNEBOL playoff with Costa Rica and Uruguay. The three remaining spots up for grabs come from the final sets of African qualifiers next month.