Switzerland fans see Northern Ireland as the dream World Cup play-off opponent

The Switzerland supporters must fancy their chances of overcoming Northern Ireland.

By Gareth Hanna

After such a strong World Cup qualifying campaign and their famous Euro 2016 finals appearance, Northern Ireland were the highest ranked of the four unseeded teams in the play-off draw. But that didn't seem to register with the Switzerland support.

On a poll run by the Switzerland national football team's official twitter account, supporters were asked which team they would most like to face in their final hurdle of the Road to Russia.

The four options to choose from were NI (ranked 23rd in the world), Sweden (25), Republic of Ireland (26) and Greece (47). Now, fair enough, with a world ranking of 11, the Swiss were going to go into any one of those four ties as favourites to earn their place at the World Cup finals.

But surely they realise they'd have an even better chance of seeing off the Greeks than they do of overcoming the GAWA.

Nonetheless, 37% of them fancied their chances against Michael O'Neill's men, trumping Greece's 33% share into first place.

Have a look:

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Maybe they're not that fussed about making it to their 12th World Cup finals and are just focused on having the craic with the GAWA in November. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

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