{"id":303195,"date":"2025-11-20T12:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T12:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/303195\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T12:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T12:49:09","slug":"northern-ireland-to-face-italy-in-wor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/303195\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland to face Italy in Wor…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northern Ireland will play Italy in a World Cup play-off semi-final in March, it has been confirmed.<\/p>\n

The play-off semi-final will be staged in Italy on 26 March, with the venue TBC.<\/p>\n

And if Northern Ireland defeat the Italians they will play the winners of the semi-final between Wales and Bosnia and Herzegovina on 31 March.<\/p>\n

The play-offs draw is currently being staged at FIFA headquarters in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

The 16 teams in the play-offs include the 12 runners-up in the group stage of the European qualifiers and the four best-ranked teams from last year\u2019s UEFA Nations League who failed to finish in the top-two in the first qualifying round.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland, who qualified for the play-offs via the Nations League route, were in Pot 4 for today\u2019s draw, while Italy were a Pot 1 team based on FIFA\u2019s latest world rankings.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s draw split the 16 teams aiming for a place at the FIFA World Cup 2026 tournament in USA, Canada and Mexico into four pots.<\/p>\n

Each of the four paths in the play-offs features one team from Pot 1, one from Pot 2, one from Pot 3 and one from Pot 4. And each path features semi-finals and a final.<\/p>\n

The semi-finals (a single leg knockout match) will see the Pot 1 team face the Pot 4 team, and the Pot 2 team face the Pot 3 team, with the Pot 1 and 2 teams at home.<\/p>\n

The two semi-final winners from each path will then meet in the final (with home advantage to be decided in today\u2019s draw) and the winner of that encounter qualifies for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Further details to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland will play Italy in a World Cup play-off semi-final in March, it has been confirmed. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-303195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303195","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=303195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}