{"id":224749,"date":"2026-01-03T06:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/224749\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T06:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:20:09","slug":"it-would-have-meant-the-world-to-my-grandfather-kevin-otoole-on-ireland-call-up-marking-messi-and-his-football-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/224749\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It would have meant the world to my grandfather\u2019 \u2013 Kevin O\u2019Toole on Ireland call-up, marking Messi and his football family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive\u00a0|\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kevin O'Toole's recent call-up with Ireland has made him more determined to earn his first cap.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/kevotoolx.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Kevin O&#8217;Toole&#8217;s recent call-up with Ireland has made him more determined to earn his first cap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">When Heimir Hallgrimsson named his Ireland squad for last November\u2019s final two World Cup qualifiers, most of the country asked themselves the same question \u2013 \u2018Who is Kevin O\u2019Toole?\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">With Robbie Brady, Callum O\u2019Dowda and Josh Honohan out injured and Ryan Manning suspended for the first showdown with Portugal, the Icelander called upon the New York City FC man to provide cover at left-back, one of the main talking points ahead of a window where hardly anyone gave Ireland a chance of doing the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive\u00a0|\u00a0 Kevin O&#8217;Toole&#8217;s recent call-up with Ireland has made him more determined to earn his first cap. When&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4700,61,60,28776,43,4876],"class_list":["post-224749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lionel-messi","tag-news","tag-sean-oconnor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224749","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=224749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}