Ireland<\/a> progress past that tie, they will face a final against the winners of a Pot 1 versus Pot 4 semi-final.<\/p>\nItaly, Denmark, Turkey and Ukraine are all in Pot 1 and will be favourites to win their games as they will have home advantage, with Romania, Sweden, N Macedonia and N Ireland on the other side of that draw.<\/p>\n
A decision on each home team for the finals will be decided by a draw, rather than seeding or ranking.<\/p>\n
The Boys in Green were hoping to sneak into Pot 2 and to secure an easier route to next summer\u2019s finals, however they needed both Austria and North Macedonia to avoid defeat.<\/p>\n
While Austria drew 1-1 at home to Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was soon apparent that North Macedonia would do no favours, as they were hammered 7-1 away to Wales.<\/p>\n
Northern Ireland are in Pot 4 and will face a tricky trip to one of the Pot 1 sides as they bid to keep their World Cup hopes alive.<\/p>\n
The draw for the play-off semi-finals will take place on Thursday at noon in Zurich. The semi-finals will be played on March 26 and the finals on March 31.<\/p>\n
Pot 1<\/p>\n
Italy, Denmark, Turkey, Ukraine<\/p>\n
Pot 2<\/p>\n
Poland, Wales, Czechia, Slovakia<\/p>\n
Pot 3<\/p>\n
IRELAND, Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo<\/p>\n
Pot 4<\/p>\n
Romania, Sweden, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland<\/p>\n
Click here to sign up to our soccer newsletter, bringing you the top stories and biggest headlines from the League of Ireland and beyond<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s men qualified for the play-offs on Sunday when Troy Parrott\u2019s hat-trick secured a 3-2 win away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2957,4700,61,60,43,65558,57383,57217,79974,79975],"class_list":["post-147233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland-national-football-team","tag-republic-of-ireland-football-team","tag-republic-of-ireland-national-football-team","tag-republic-of-ireland-soccer","tag-republic-of-ireland-soccer-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Troy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_GettyImages-2246443193.jpg\")
Troy Parrott and teammates celebrate after beating Hungary(Image: ATTILA KISBENEDEK\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n