{"id":371587,"date":"2026-03-29T16:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/371587\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:14:08","slug":"republic-of-ireland-v-north-macedonia-millenic-alli-earns-first-international-call-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/371587\/","title":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland v North Macedonia: Millenic Alli earns first international call-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Republic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson has called Portsmouth winger Millenic Alli into his squad for Tuesday&#8217;s friendly against North Macedonia in Dublin [19:45 BST].<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 26-year-old earns his first call-up to the senior squad and took part in training at Abbotstown on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alli began his career in England playing non-league before signing for Exeter City in 2024, catching the eye of Luton Town who spent \u00a31.5 million to bring him to Kenilworth Road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Dubliner scored four goals in the final six games of last season, but the Hatters would suffer relegation to League One.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite falling out of favour, Alli was picked up on loan by Portsmouth and he has started all 14 games since his arrival at Fratton Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He has scored once in the Championship club&#8217;s bid to beat the drop and his performances have caught the attention of Hallgrimsson who brings him into the squad with others unavailable for Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Midfielder Jack Taylor has left the squad for family reasons, while Sammie Szmodics has returned to Derby County to continue his recovery from a concussion sustained in Thursday&#8217;s World Cup play-off semi-final defeat on penalties by the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That defeat in Prague saw the Republic of Ireland&#8217;s hopes of qualifying for this summer&#8217;s World Cup come to an end, while North Macedonia were beaten in their semi-final by Denmark, leaving both nations to face each other in a friendly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson has called Portsmouth winger Millenic Alli into his squad for Tuesday&#8217;s friendly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-371587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371587","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=371587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}