{"id":378565,"date":"2026-04-02T17:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/378565\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T17:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:12:08","slug":"the-stat-that-shows-why-ireland-fans-are-world-class-despite-world-cup-heartache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/378565\/","title":{"rendered":"The stat that shows why Ireland fans are world class despite World Cup heartache"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s World Cup misery in Prague didn\u2019t stop almost 40,000 fans from packing into the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

17:23, 02 Apr 2026Updated 17:24, 02 Apr 2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

S\u00e9amus Coleman salutes the Ireland fans during Tuesday’s friendly with North Macedonia(Image: INPHO\/James Crombie)<\/p>\n

Any fears that the connection between Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s team and the fans had been broken by events in Prague last week were well and truly blown away on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but the attendance of almost 40,000 at the Aviva Stadium<\/a> for a friendly against North Macedonia was one of the highest across Europe on March 31.<\/p>\n

In total, there were 20 games played within UEFA territories, between World Cup<\/a> play-offs, friendlies between play-off losers, Nations League play-offs, regular friendlies and FIFA Series games.<\/p>\n

England\u2019s defeat to Japan saw the biggest crowd of the night, with 79,233 fans packing into Wembley to watch Thomas Tuchel\u2019s side in action.<\/p>\n

That was way ahead of the second biggest attendance, as 58,000 fans packed into Puskas Arena, the scene of Troy Parrott\u2019s hat-trick last November, to watch Hungary and Greece play out a scoreless friendly draw.<\/p>\n

In third place on Tuesday night was the World Cup play-off between Sweden and Poland, as the majority of the 49,627 fans in Stockholm celebrated the home side\u2019s 3-2 win.<\/p>\n

And then in fourth place out of the 20 games was Ireland\u2019s clash with North Macedonia, where the attendance was 39,560.<\/p>\n

When the Boys in Green lost on penalties to Czechia last week in Prague, it was feared that the friendly no one wanted to play would be staged in front of empty stands.<\/p>\n

Yet the vast majority of supporters who had bought tickets in the hope that they would see a World Cup play-off decider against Denmark turned up and were in full voice behind Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

That attendance beat the 35,895 that watched Spain and Egypt play out a scoreless draw, while next was Austria\u2019s friendly with South Korea (35,300), a team that Ireland would have faced had they qualified for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Scotland played the Ivory Coast on Tuesday night at Everton\u2019s Hill Dickinson Stadium in front of 33,034 fans, while the Play-off Path A loser friendly between Wales and Northern Ireland drew an impressive 32,473 fans.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to backing their team, the Green Army once again showed its eagerness to get behind Troy Parrott and Co, in spite of the heart-breaking circumstances around the North Macedonia game.<\/p>\n

TUESDAY NIGHT\u2019S ATTENDANCESEngland 0-1 Japan – 79,233Hungary 0-0 Greece – 58,000*Sweden 3-2 Poland – 49,627**Ireland 0-0 North Macedonia – 39,560Spain 0-0 Egypt – 35,895Austria 1-0 South Korea – 35,300Scotland 0-1 Ivory Coast – 33,034 (Hill Dickinson Stadium)**Wales 1-1 Northern Ireland – 32,473Netherlands 1-1 Ecuador – 29,344Norway 0-0 Switzerland – 23,913*Czechia 2-2 Denmark – 18,215*Kosovo 0-1 Turkiye – 12,887*Bosnia 1-1 Italy – 9,500***Luxembourg 3-0 Malta – 9,113**Slovakia 2-0 Romania – 8,043***Latvia 1-0 Gibraltar – 5,120Serbia 2-1 Saudi Arabia – 4,101Montenegro 2-3 Slovenia – 1,500Kazakhstan 1-0 Comoros (attendance not given, capacity 30,000)**Ukraine 1-0 Albania (attendance not given, capacity 26,354)<\/p>\n

(*World Cup play-off, **Friendly between play-off semi-final losers, ***Nations League play-off)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s World Cup misery in Prague didn\u2019t stop almost 40,000 fans from packing into the Aviva Stadium on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1399,11148,2956,2957,4700,61,60,43,57217,5041,44452,30918,144894,22903],"class_list":{"0":"post-378565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-aviva-stadium","9":"tag-england-football-team","10":"tag-fifa","11":"tag-fifa-world-cup","12":"tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-republic-of-ireland-national-football-team","17":"tag-thomas-tuchel","18":"tag-troy-parrott","19":"tag-uefa","20":"tag-uefa-nations-league","21":"tag-wembley-stadium"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378565","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=378565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}