2014 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA second round

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 2014 FIFA World Cup in football. The winners – Croatia, France, Greece, and Portugal – of each of four home and away ties joined the group winners in the World Cup in Brazil. The matches, which are often referred to as 'play-offs', were held on 15 and 19 November 2013.

The draw for the ties was held in Zürich on 21 October, with the October 2013 FIFA World Rankings used to decide which of the teams would be seeded.

Qualified teams
The eight best runners-up from the UEFA first round qualified for the play-offs; with one group having one team fewer than the others, matches against the sixth-placed team in each First Round group did not count for this ranking. As a result, eight matches played by each team counted for the purposes of ranking the runners-up (below table).

Ranking of second-placed teams
The eight best runners-up were determined by the following parameters in this order:
 * 1) Highest number of points
 * 2) Goal difference
 * 3) Highest number of goals scored

Seeding and draw
The second round draw took place at the headquarters of FIFA in Zurich on 21 October at 14:00 UTC+2, and was conducted by Gordon Savic, Head of FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, with the assistance of former Switzerland international Alexander Frei. October 2013 FIFA World Rankings were used to decide which of the teams would be seeded (shown below in brackets).

The following teams participated in the second round:

Matches

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Portugal won 4–2 on aggregate and qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

France won 3–2 on aggregate and qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Greece won 4–2 on aggregate and qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Croatia won 2–0 on aggregate and qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.