{"id":226868,"date":"2026-01-04T12:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/226868\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T12:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:52:10","slug":"james-mcclean-sammie-szmodics-and-other-ireland-players-who-could-make-march-play-off-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/226868\/","title":{"rendered":"James McClean, Sammie Szmodics and other Ireland players who could make March play-off return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Heimir Hallgrimsson could still look into the past while plotting for future glory\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ireland's Sammie Szmodics during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Group F qualifying match against Hungary at the Aviva Stadium in September. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767531130_512_b7285da3-5dfa-42e9-a69b-89abffaf1405.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)\">Ireland&#8217;s Sammie Szmodics during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Group F qualifying match against Hungary at the Aviva Stadium in September. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/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)\">The long countdown to the biggest games of an Irish generation is a form of agony for those hanging on the outcome but at least it\u2019s better to the more familiar feeling of looking ahead to the next campaign from this remove.<\/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)\">World Cup play-off involvement in March means that Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson has proper short-term scouting business to do across January and February rather than analysing the bigger picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heimir Hallgrimsson could still look into the past while plotting for future glory Ireland&#8217;s Sammie Szmodics during the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3264,1113,4700,61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-226868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-daniel-mcdonnell","9":"tag-fai","10":"tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226868","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=226868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}