{"id":505998,"date":"2026-06-18T11:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/505998\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T11:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:49:09","slug":"ireland-to-face-kazakhstan-in-womens-world-cup-play-offs-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/505998\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland to face Kazakhstan in Women\u2019s World Cup play-offs \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Republic of Ireland will have to overcome a familiar opponent to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil next summer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Carla Ward\u2019s team have been drawn against Kazakhstan in the playoff semi-final, over two legs on October 7th, away from home, and October 13th in Tallaght or at the Aviva Stadium. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">If Ireland progress past the country ranked 100th in the world, they will face the winners of Belgium and Poland over two legs on November 26th and December 5th. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ireland avoided relegation to Nations League B last October by edging out Belgium over two legs thanks to Abbie Larkin\u2019s 90th minute winner in Leuven.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In April they beat Poland home and away in the World Cup qualifiers with inspirational performances from Katie McCabe, Denise O\u2019Sullivan and Emily Murphy, along with two goals from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/soccer\/2026\/04\/18\/denise-osullivan-powers-ireland-to-world-cup-qualifier-win-over-poland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/soccer\/2026\/04\/18\/denise-osullivan-powers-ireland-to-world-cup-qualifier-win-over-poland\/\">Marissa Sheva<\/a>, ensuring a seeded playoff draw after finishing third behind France and the Netherlands in Group A2.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Seven European nations will progress through the playoffs to join Spain, France, Denmark, and Germany at a tournament that takes place across eight Brazilian cities from June 24th next year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The eighth ranked European side that comes through the playoffs will be rerouted to an inter-confederation playoff in February 2027. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ireland avoided drawing Israel in a playoff final as Israelis drew Switzerland and potentially the winners of Kosovo versus Austria. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">European champions England should breeze through their playoff semi-final against Greece before facing the winner from Slovakia and Ukraine. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Wales must overcome Albania and the winner of Romania versus Norway while Scotland were drawn against the Czech Republic with Lithuania or Sweden waiting in the next round. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Northern Ireland have a tough tie against Portugal with Croatia or Iceland awaiting in the winner. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republic of Ireland will have to overcome a familiar opponent to qualify for the World Cup in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18999,61,60,43,18998,176619],"class_list":["post-505998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-carla-ward","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-wnt","tag-women-s-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505998","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=505998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}