![\"Evan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/skysports-evan-ferguson-republic-of-ireland_7051207.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEvan Ferguson’s fourth goal in five competitive internationals kept the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup dream alive as they edged past 10-man Armenia to claim their first Group F victory.<\/p>\n
Head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson had admitted in advance that he would accept a “s****y” performance and a 1-0 win on a night when victory was the only option, and Ireland eventually delivered – if only just – as they made the most of Tigran Barseghyan’s senseless second-half dismissal for a headbutt on Finn Azaz.<\/p>\n
Twenty-year-old Ferguson, who had passed up a glorious opportunity to open the scoring seconds earlier, dispatched a 70th-minute header to seal a 1-0 win at the Aviva Stadium and ensure already-qualified leaders Portugal’s visit to Dublin next month and the trip to Hungary, which follows it, are meaningful, if daunting.<\/p>\n
Ireland now sit one point behind second-place Hungary, who they face on November 16, following the crucial win in front of their home crowd. The fixture against Portugal will be played at home on November 13.<\/p>\n
On whether the result against Armenia changes the state of play in Group F after Hungary rescued a late draw against Portugal to prevent Ireland moving level on points, Hallgrimsson said: “Not really, it doesn’t change anything. We always knew that we needed to go to Hungary and have a win there.<\/p>\n
“This looks like we need a point against Portugal, or Armenia to do us a favour in Yerevan. We all see that this Armenian team is no roll-over. There’s a big heart, there’s aggression and a spirit that is noticeable.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Evan Ferguson’s header secured the win for the Republic of Ireland against Armenia<\/p>\n
They will need to be markedly better in both games than they were against a side ranked 103rd by FIFA if they are to stand any chance of claiming the runners-up spot after a performance that, for long periods, lacked the inspiration necessary to make life much easier than it ultimately was.<\/p>\n
Hallgrimsson: We just needed three points to stay alive<\/p>\n
Republic of Ireland boss Heimir Hallgrimsson:<\/p>\n
“Listen, we said before this camp we would take a scrappy 1-0 win and it probably was kind of a scrappy 1-0 win, so we can’t be unhappy.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been complaining about the second game syndrome – we must be happy that we won the second game; we’ve been complaining about conceding early – we didn’t concede early, we didn’t concede at all, so we kept a clean sheet, that’s a good step.<\/p>\n
“We’ll take the positives and carry on to the next window. It’s just a new dawn, it’s a new day next window – this result today doesn’t matter at all.<\/p>\n
“We just needed the three points to be alive and have a chance, that’s number one, so we cannot be reading too much into that performance today.<\/p>\n
“It was always going to be a tough match for us – we needed to win – and again it’s going to be tough, just a different opponent, players playing higher quality next time.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evan Ferguson’s fourth goal in five competitive internationals kept the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup dream alive as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-226278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}