{"id":560247,"date":"2026-03-25T18:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/560247\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T18:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:09:08","slug":"coleman-tells-ireland-they-have-a-duty-to-lift-country-in-world-cup-playoff-republic-of-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/560247\/","title":{"rendered":"Coleman tells Ireland they have a duty to lift country in World Cup playoff | Republic of Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e9amus Coleman believes the Republic of Ireland<\/a> have \u201ca duty\u201d to lift the country by completing the job of qualifying for a World Cup finals for the first time since 2002.<\/p>\n

Ireland visit the Czech \u00adRepublic on Thursday in a World Cup playoff semi\u2011final that few would have imagined possible after collecting one point from their opening three qualifiers. Having reignited their campaign with two Troy Parrott-inspired wins against Portugal and Hungary in November, however, Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s side<\/a> will take confidence and momentum into their bid to end a 24-year absence from the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Playoffs have brought misery for the Republic in the past, from Thierry Henry\u2019s handball for France in 2009<\/a> to Denmark\u2019s 5-1 rout in Dublin in 2017, but Coleman insists recent history will be forgotten in Prague and he has urged the team to finish the job. A home playoff final against Denmark or North Macedonia awaits the winner of the semi-final at the 19,370\u2011capacity Fortuna Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current group are all so young so I don\u2019t think they are dwelling on that hurt too much,\u201d the Republic and Everton captain said of previous \u00adplayoff defeats. \u201cWe are just \u00adriding the wave of confidence we\u2019ve got from the last two games. To see how the nation is feeling now is \u00adincredible. We\u2019ve got a duty to try and make them even happier.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ireland manager Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson gets a welcome, of sorts, at the Fortune Arena. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

At 37 and with injuries restricting his appearances for Everton, this is Coleman\u2019s last chance to reach a World Cup. \u201cSelfishly it would be amazing because as players you want to do as much as you can in the game, but from the aftermath of the last two games and seeing what it did to our country, it was incredible how it lifted our country and lifted our people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt genuinely made people happier and gave people something to get up in the morning and talk about, which is so important. So as much as we want to do it for ourselves and for the staff behind the scenes, we want to do it for the people of our country as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

They have been allocated only 1,024 tickets for the semi-final but, having stunned a hostile crowd of almost 60,000 in Budapest with their last\u2011gasp win in November, Coleman says the Republic will not be intimidated in Prague. \u201cThis group has been through a lot,\u201d the defender said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe manager has touched a lot this week on the hurdles the group has overcome and I think we are ready for it. It\u2019s going to be tough, it\u2019s going to be fiery out there and maybe two years ago it would have been a lot for the young lads to take, but I think now everyone has stepped up and are prepared for what\u2019s to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coleman\u2019s confidence was shared at the pre-match press conference by Hallgr\u00edmsson, who recently extended his contract with the Football Association of Ireland until the end of the Euro 2028 campaign. The Czech Republic<\/a> pose a conundrum ahead of the semi-final in the sense it will be Miroslav Koubek\u2019s first game in charge of the national team. The 74-year-old former Viktoria Plzen coach was appointed in December as successor to Ivan Hasek, who was sacked following the shock defeat by the Faroe Islands in October that ended their hopes of automatic qualification.<\/p>\n

Hallgr\u00edmsson said: \u201cThere could be a change with their new coach so we are not overly analysing them. We are just focusing on ourselves and trying to build on what we have been doing. We know this coach likes to play a different formation to what they have done before so we plan for both, but we are not overly concerned about what he will throw at us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"S\u00e9amus Coleman believes the Republic of Ireland have \u201ca duty\u201d to lift the country by completing the job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-560247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}