{"id":333952,"date":"2026-03-07T15:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/333952\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T15:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:09:11","slug":"blow-for-ireland-ahead-of-world-cup-play-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/333952\/","title":{"rendered":"Blow for Ireland ahead of World Cup play-off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fm104.ie\/news\/sport\/\" class=\"c-btn c-btn--small c-btn--secondary-fill\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>        All Sport<br \/>\n    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aiir-c-news-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69ac2ee75b4d7.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/>\n                                    Heimir Hallgrimsson will have to plan without one of his biggest players<\/p>\n<p class=\"aiir-c-news-article__abstract\">\n            This is a setback ahead of the biggest game in years.\n        <\/p>\n<p>Ireland have suffered a blow ahead of this month&#8217;s massive World Cup play-off with Czechia in Prague.<\/p>\n<p>Evan Ferguson is reportedly going for surgery on his injured ankle after reports this week that he was returning to Brighton.<\/p>\n<p>This morning&#8217;s news means that the Meath man will also be in a race against time if the Boys in Green were to make it to the tournament proper. Ireland haven&#8217;t made it to the World Cup since 2002 when they reached the last-16.<\/p>\n<p>Ferguson last played for Ireland, scoring the winner against Armenia in a World Cup qualifer in October. He missed the historic victories over Portugal and Hungary which kept hopes of a trip to north America this summer alive.<\/p>\n<p>The winner of the Ireland versus Czechia clash will face either Denmark or North Macedonia in the play-off final, with that game set for Dublin if Heimir Hallgrimsson&#8217;s side get through.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/onic-player\/id6747436925?ppid=9a0d5cd8-6997-43a3-8721-1e4cc9244dd1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/68da98f493cd3.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Sport Heimir Hallgrimsson will have to plan without one of his biggest players This is a setback&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26625,615,26622,26620,26621,61,60,26626,26627,43,26624,5596,26623],"class_list":["post-333952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-104-drive","tag-dublin","tag-dublin-radio-station","tag-fm104","tag-fm104-homepage","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-job-finder","tag-listen-live","tag-news","tag-phoneshow","tag-podcast","tag-strawberry-alarm-clock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333952","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=333952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}