{"id":491822,"date":"2026-06-10T03:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/491822\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T03:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:47:14","slug":"after-defeat-to-france-whats-next-for-carla-wards-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/491822\/","title":{"rendered":"After defeat to France, what&#8217;s next for Carla Ward&#8217;s Ireland?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/sport\/soccer\/arid-41859864.html\">defeat to France<\/a>, Ireland must now navigate their way to a major tournament by emerging from a fourth play-off series in a row.<\/p>\n<p>Promotion to League B by beating Belgium last October guaranteed Ireland that fallback before a ball was kicked in this six-match World Cup qualifying campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">By finishing third in the group, seeded status is bestowed on them for both the semi-final in October and the November final, should they progress. It means they will be at home in the second leg of both ties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The draw will take place next Wednesday, June 18 in Switzerland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">With only the winners of the four League A pools progressing directly to the finals next summer in Brazil, a whopping 32 others enter the playoff series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Crucially, Ireland are in what\u2019s known as path one, presenting a notionally easier route to the Copacabana.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">In essence, Ireland will be overwhelming favourites to prevail in the semi-final against a team from League C.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">After the regulation series concluded simultaneously, one of Romania, Greece, Kosovo, Hungary, Croatia, Belarus, Kazakhstan or Lithuania will be paired with Ireland in the semi-final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">All of those sides reside below Ireland\u2019s Fifa ranking of 21, and in historical battles, where applicable, Ireland have run out as victors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The final will be against the winner of a tie between a League B second\/third place team and League A last team\/League B winner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Those finals will produce eight winners, of which seven progress to the World Cup. The lowest-seeded of the victors must enter an Intercontinental group but Ireland\u2019s surge in ranking avoids that additional layer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With defeat to France, Ireland must now navigate their way to a major tournament by emerging from a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,18998],"class_list":["post-491822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-wnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491822","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=491822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}