{"id":375147,"date":"2026-03-31T19:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375147\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T19:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:19:11","slug":"ireland-vs-north-macedonia-team-named-as-heimir-hallgrimsson-makes-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375147\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland vs North Macedonia team named as Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson makes changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson has made three changes to the team that lost the World Cup play-off on penalties to Czechia.<\/p>\n

18:26, 31 Mar 2026Updated 18:59, 31 Mar 2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson(Image: INPHO\/Ryan Byrne)<\/p>\n

Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson has named his starting-11 for the friendly against North Macedonia.<\/p>\n

And the Ireland<\/a> manager has made just three changes to the team that lost on penalties to Czechia in last Thursday\u2019s World Cup play-off semi-final in Prague.<\/p>\n

One of those changes is enforced – Jason Knight comes into midfield alongside Jayson Molumby following Jack Taylor\u2019s return home for family reasons.<\/p>\n

As for the others, John Egan comes into defence, with Jake O\u2019Brien dropping down to the bench.<\/p>\n

And Liam Scales replaces Ryan Manning at left-wing-back after he sat out the Prague game because of suspension.<\/p>\n

So, how did we do with our prediction<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Well, we did say Manning and O\u2019Brien would be taken out of the starting side, but we were only 50 percent right when it came to their replacements. We thought Jimmy Dunne would come in for O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n

As for Scales\u2019 and Knights\u2019 inclusion, we were spot on there.<\/p>\n

But we got it wrong with our prediction that Harvey Vale would be handed a start at the expense of Chiedozie Ogbene.<\/p>\n

All the same, we\u2019re happy enough with nine out of 11, considering friendly line-ups are often harder to predict than for competitive matches!<\/p>\n

Team: Caoimhin Kelleher; John Egan, Nathan Collins, Dara O’Shea; Seamus Coleman, Jason Knight, Jayson Molumby, Liam Scales; Chiedozie Ogbene, Finn Azaz; Troy Parrott.<\/p>\n

Click here to sign up to our sport newsletter, bringing you the top stories and biggest headlines from Ireland and beyond<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson has made three changes to the team that lost the World Cup play-off on penalties to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4700,61,60,168170,168169,134134,62315,43,57217,168171],"class_list":["post-375147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jake-obrien","tag-jason-knight","tag-john-egan","tag-liam-scales","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-national-football-team","tag-ryan-manning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375147","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=375147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}