{"id":330587,"date":"2026-03-05T17:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/330587\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T17:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:03:10","slug":"thats-always-been-my-aim-to-get-my-first-cap-for-ireland-joe-hodge-on-life-in-portugal-and-world-cup-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/330587\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018That\u2019s always been my aim, to get my first cap for Ireland\u2019 \u2013\u00a0Joe Hodge on life in Portugal and World Cup dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive\u00a0|\u00a0<\/p>\n<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\">Having overcome a number of setbacks, the 23-year-old midfielder is playing regularly for top-flight side Tondela and hopes he can force his way into Heimir Hallgrimsson&#8217;s plans\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Joe Hodge in action for Tondela against Benfica's Leandro Barreiro at the Estadio da Luz. Photo: Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5a60d4cb-9094-4c39-9d52-a734ee5d6aa1.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)\">Joe Hodge in action for Tondela against Benfica&#8217;s Leandro Barreiro at the Estadio da Luz. Photo: Getty<\/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)\">From Budapest to Boston and all points in between, Irish men and women jumped and hugged friends and strangers in beer-soaked, manic celebrations when Troy Parrott delivered that salvo of goals in Hungary last year.<\/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)\">A compatriot, who has more than a passing interest in the affairs of the national team, had an experience that was both sober and solo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive\u00a0|\u00a0 Having overcome a number of setbacks, the 23-year-old midfielder is playing regularly for top-flight side Tondela and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2049,4700,61,60,112,99045],"class_list":["post-330587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aidan-fitzmaurice","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports","tag-wolverhampton-wanderers-football-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330587","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=330587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}