{"id":471558,"date":"2026-05-28T16:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471558\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T16:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:30:09","slug":"ireland-vs-qatar-all-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471558\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland vs Qatar: All you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Republic of Ireland takes on Qatar in the Aviva Stadium on Thursday night in the first of two upcoming friendlies for Heimir Hallgrimsson\u2019s side.<\/p>\n<p>The Boys in Green will fly to North America to play Canada next month, but first up is a home game against the 2022 World Cup hosts in Dublin.<\/p>\n<p>While there are 10 uncapped players included in the squad for the upcoming fixtures against Qatar and Canada, <a href=\"https:\/\/extra.ie\/2026\/05\/27\/sport\/heimir-hallgrimsson-on-israel\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Heimir Hallgrimsson<\/a> has indicated that experience is likely to be prioritised for Thursday\u2019s encounter due to the short preparation time ahead of the game.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Untitled-design-2026-05-28T154905.890.jpg\" alt=\"Mason Melia\" class=\"wp-image-1776322\"  \/>Mason Melia will hope to make his debut against Qatar. Pic: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p>The fixture serves as an important part of Qatar\u2019s preparations ahead of the FIFA World Cup in America, with the visitors travelling to the tournament following their visit to the Aviva.<\/p>\n<p>The game was originally supposed to be the first of two warm-up friendlies for Ireland, too, ahead of the FIFA World Cup, but after the heartbreak in Prague that knocked Ireland out of qualifying, the two games will give Hallgrimsson the chance to experiment with some fresh faces.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Given the time we have, more or less, this is the only day we have proper training with everybody ready and fit. So, we will go for experience tomorrow,\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fai.ie\/latest\/match-preview-republic-ireland-v-qatar-experienced-xi-set-friendly\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hallgrimsson said.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Untitled-design-2026-05-28T154602.985.jpg\" alt=\"Heimir Hallgrimsson and Seamus Coleman\" class=\"wp-image-1776318\"  \/>Heimir Hallgrimsson and Seamus Coleman. Pic: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p>\u2018We\u2019ll start with the ones that have been with us before. It gives us another week to prepare the younger guys for the Canada match.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Hopefully, we can give some of them some time on the pitch tomorrow, but this is a strong opponent going for the World Cup.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s everything you need to know about the first of the two friendly matches.<\/p>\n<p>Date<\/p>\n<p>The game is on today, May 28, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Kick-off time<\/p>\n<p>The game kicks off at 7:45 pm Irish time.<\/p>\n<p>Venue<\/p>\n<p>The match is on at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.<\/p>\n<p>TV information<\/p>\n<p>RT\u00c92 will show Ireland vs Qatar live on Thursday evening with coverage starting shortly before the 7:45 pm kick-off. The game will also be available online on the RT\u00c9 Player.<\/p>\n<p>Betting odds at the time of writing<\/p>\n<p>Ireland \u2013 1\/2<\/p>\n<p>Qatar \u2013 9\/2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republic of Ireland takes on Qatar in the Aviva Stadium on Thursday night in the first of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-471558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471558","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=471558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}