{"id":504797,"date":"2026-03-31T07:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/504797\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T07:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:47:08","slug":"wales-v-northern-ireland-the-match-nobody-wants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/504797\/","title":{"rendered":"Wales v Northern Ireland: The match nobody wants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wales host Northern Ireland in a friendly on Tuesday, a match that nobody wants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The fixture is taking place because both teams lost their World Cup play-off semi-finals on Thursday, against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So, while the winners of those ties face each other in Zenica for a place at this summer&#8217;s tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the losers must meet in Cardiff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The game will provide fringe players with a chance to impress their bosses, Craig Bellamy and Michael O&#8217;Neill, who are understandably keen to stress the value of this encounter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But for the fans and anyone else associated with these teams, this is a tough sell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;For the supporters, it&#8217;s a complete dead rubber. It is one of the most ridiculous things I&#8217;ve ever heard &#8211; it&#8217;s pointless,&#8221; was the blunt assessment from former Northern Ireland midfielder Chris Brunt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The reality, however, is that international football&#8217;s governing bodies have decreed the game must go ahead, whether anyone likes it or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wales host Northern Ireland in a friendly on Tuesday, a match that nobody wants. The fixture is taking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-504797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}