The knockout round between 8 sides for a spot in WC 2018 will be next months, however, it as already been revealed who would play who.

Northern Ireland vs Switzerland
Croatia vs Greece
Sweden vs Italy
Denmark vs Republic of Ireland

Northern Ireland, Croatia, Sweden and Denmark will play their first game at home and the second away. All games will take place between November 9 to 14.

Here are the team I expect to go trough:
Switzerland
Croatia
Italy
Denmark (but it will still be the most open game in my opinion.)

Well judging from the playoff matches, the world cup will have very little goals like in South Africa :/

@Golazo Hope your wrong. I do love myself a game with some crazy amount of goal. :)

Well this was unexpected but Italy was really meh..

Like I said Sweden was unlucky to get Italy because they would have won any other country...but in the end they won even Italy!

@Golazo Thats pretty sad. :( Wonder if it mean that Buffon will retire from international football. Propably. Really sad for him and the other player who propably won't make world cup in 2022. The fact Italy don't make it make me as sad as Netherland, Chile and USA not making it and its pherhap even more shocking. :(

As for Sweden, they have been really impressive, they are really giant killer at the moment. :O

Last time Italy failed to qualify was 1958, the host was Sweden :D

@Golazo Yeah, I saw your comment on the highlight section, its pretty ironic. :P

(Still a bit sad for Italy though)

I mentioned that I didn't want controversy in this match (Italy-Sweden) and then one of the first articles I see online is Mateu Lahoz, La Liga's worst referee, putting on another brilliant performance and missing clear penalties.

Aside from that, like you guys have mentioned the last time Italy didn't make it to the WC was 1958 so t's going to be rather strange not having them there. Obviously it's sad for legends like Buffon or Chiellini who won't make it to their last ever world cup. Expecting some big changes to happen for Italy with older players making way for newer ones, and a new manager to take command of the Italian side and inject it with new ideas. In that sense, it could be a good thing for Italy and it could be that slap or push they needed to rebuild into a serious contender. It's still very sad for the Italian people, but I'm just trying to find the silver lining in this whole situation.

I think it'll be nice to see new faces in the world cup. I've been wanting to see Ibra in the world cup and this was the last chance for that to happen so that will be nice.

@Yvan21 Hum, Zlatan in world cup could be complicated, after all, he retired from international football after euro 2016 and it could be hard to make space for him on the team now that they found a winning formula, clearly, it will be interesting to see what happen with Sweden in the coming year. :)

Ibra retired from national team guys, he even said few days ago that he is not returning, since now Sweden works more like a team and with him it would put extra pressure.

Sweden is way better without Zlatan than with him, if he plays all logics insist that all balls should be towards him, which is obviously wrong, since he isn't even best Swedish player at the moment. They are using young lads and it is turning out well, they beated both Netherlands and France and now won hard playoff against Italy.

Also nice possibility that 3 Scandinavian/Nordic teams will be in World Cup if Denmark qualifies today, it would be first time.

Sweden never beat Netherlands in these qualis, they didn't even have to...Ibrahimovic is their best player of all times maybe he can be in the staff in a coaching role just to give some mental strenght to the team.

Oh wow I wasn't aware of that. There's still a long time till the WC and it will be interesting to see in what form he's in after his injury and if he can perform decently with Man U once he comes back. Like Golazo mentioned I think he could still play a role in the team as part of the staff, but also how about just coming off the bench? After all, having a player with his experience who can contribute something different to the team for those games where the primary tactics don't work could be useful. But if he's said that he won't be returning like Quikzy said then I guess there's no way around it, and the current Swedish manager seems to have made it clear that Ibra is not a part of his plans. We'll see what happens :p