{"id":345771,"date":"2026-03-14T10:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/345771\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T10:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:52:10","slug":"there-was-a-lot-of-wondering-what-if-recalling-irelands-last-world-cup-play-off-ahead-of-czechia-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/345771\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018There was a lot of wondering what if?\u2019 \u2013 recalling Ireland\u2019s last World Cup play-off ahead of Czechia mission"},"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\">\nFormer Ireland No 1 Darren Randolph hopes Ireland don\u2019t repeat the heartache of 2017\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Denmark's Andreas Christensen celebrates after scoring his side's first goal past Darren Randolph in Ireland's 5-1 World Cup play-off defeat at the Aviva Stadium. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1419797.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)\">Denmark&#8217;s Andreas Christensen celebrates after scoring his side&#8217;s first goal past Darren Randolph in Ireland&#8217;s 5-1 World Cup play-off defeat at the Aviva Stadium. Photo: Brendan Moran\/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)\">As the nation holds its breath for Ireland\u2019s first World Cup play-off in almost a decade, two things stick out in Darren Randolph\u2019s mind from that cold November night at Lansdowne Road.<\/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)\">One was the deafening noise at kick-off and the other was the deathly silence that followed in the dressing room after the full-time whistle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Ireland No 1 Darren Randolph hopes Ireland don\u2019t repeat the heartache of 2017 Denmark&#8217;s Andreas Christensen celebrates&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,4876],"class_list":["post-345771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-sean-oconnor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345771","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=345771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}