{"id":151324,"date":"2025-11-21T04:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T04:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/151324\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T04:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T04:15:11","slug":"why-draw-against-czech-republic-is-good-news-for-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/151324\/","title":{"rendered":"Why draw against Czech Republic is good news for Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

So now we know, the World Cup play-off fixtures have been announced: Republic of Ireland will play Czech Republic away on March 26th, and if they win, they will play Denmark or North Macedonia in Dublin on March 31st.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland will play Italy away, and if they win, they will be away again to Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina. <\/p>\n

The playoffs are knockout matches so it could all end on March 26th, but what if it doesn\u2019t? <\/p>\n

Can Ireland manager Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> bring the team to the World Cup? That\u2019s a dream that even the most diehard fans, looking at the dismal start to the qualifying campaign, had all but given up on. But then there was the win over Portugal <\/a>\u2013 a victory that not only made a trip to the tournament a possibility but kept the manager in a job. <\/p>\n

Irish Times soccer correspondent Gavin Cummiskey spoke to Hallgr\u00edmsson <\/a>after the draw. On In the News he looks at the manager\u2019s reaction to the draw, comments on our chances against the Czechs (good!) and explains how after a year of getting it wrong, everything came good for the Irish team. <\/p>\n

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey and Andrew McNair. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So now we know, the World Cup play-off fixtures have been announced: Republic of Ireland will play Czech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2956,61,60,43,4018],"class_list":["post-151324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fifa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151324","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=151324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}