Greece was drawn against Romania and Croatia will play tiny Iceland in the other two playoff matchups, which were set Monday in a draw at the headquarters of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, in Zurich.

The home-and-home playoffs will be Nov. 15 and 19. Portugal, Ukraine, Greece and Iceland will host the first legs. 

The Portugal-Sweden pairing has the most star power, with Portugal’s star wing Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid facing Paris St.-Germain striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but the matchup also ensures that one of them will miss next year’s World Cup. Ukraine, which fell into the playoffs after it was edged by England on the final day of group play, was left staring at the biggest hurdle in powerful France, the 1998 World Cup champion. 

Iceland is the only team in the playoffs never to have appeared in the World Cup, and if it can overcome Croatia it will be among the smallest nations ever to qualify for the tournament. The draw might have thrown Iceland a lifeline, however; Croatia stumbled through group play, scoring only 12 goals in 10 games while surrendering 9. 

Greece has appeared in only two World Cups (1998 and 2010). Romania, a quarterfinalist in the United States in 1994, has not qualified since 1998.

The seeds for the draw were based on the most recent FIFA world rankings, with Portugal (14), Greece (15), Croatia (18) and Ukraine (20) placed in one pot and France (25), Sweden (26), Romania (29) and Iceland (46) in the other.

The playoff winners will join the nine group winners from European qualifying already in the field for Brazil: Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.

Only seven spots are still to be claimed in the 32-team field for next summer’s finals: the five African playoff winners, which will be determined Nov. 16 to 19, and the victors of two intercontinental playoffs, Uruguay versus Jordan and Mexico versus New Zealand

What are your comments about the draws. Fair or Not?