{"id":375137,"date":"2026-03-31T19:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375137\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T19:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:13:15","slug":"ireland-v-north-macedonia-preview-hope-springs-eternal-as-fixture-nobody-wanted-begins-801-day-countdown-to-euro-2028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375137\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland v North Macedonia preview: Hope springs eternal as fixture nobody wanted begins 801-day countdown to Euro 2028"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The scene is set for tonight's international friendly against North Macedonia at Aviva Stadium. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sports3411317.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)\">The scene is set for tonight&#8217;s international friendly against North Macedonia at Aviva Stadium. 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)\">It\u2019s still not getting any better, is it? There have been darker moments in the decade since Ireland\u2019s last major tournament, but rarely this sense of deflation \u2013 perhaps because setbacks usually arrive at the end of a gathering, not right in the middle of one.<\/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 game faces that are being put on ahead of a return to the Aviva Stadium this evening aren\u2019t really disguising the reality of how difficult it is to generate any enthusiasm for a match that the FAI are contractually obliged to fill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scene is set for tonight&#8217;s international friendly against North Macedonia at Aviva Stadium. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile It\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3264,4700,61,60,112,44452],"class_list":["post-375137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-daniel-mcdonnell","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports","tag-troy-parrott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375137","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=375137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}