Former England Under-19 captain Harvey Vale has been called up to the Republic of Ireland squad for next week’s World Cup play-off semi-final against the Czech Republic. <\/p>\n
The 22-year-old Queens Park Rangers midfielder, who started his senior career at Chelsea, represented England up to under-20 level and captained their European Under-19 Championship triumph in 2022.<\/p>\n
Vale, who holds an Irish passport, earns an immediate call-up after his allegiance switch was confirmed by Fifa last week.<\/p>\n
“I talked to him over a year ago,” said Republic of Ireland boss Heimir Hallgrimssom, who revealed during his news conference that he has signed a contract extension until 2028.<\/p>\n
“He expressed a desire to play for Ireland. He was injured then so we have been watching him. His development at Queens Park has been growing and it’s a perfect time to bring him into the squad.<\/p>\n
“Good player, good person, hard-working guy, creator of chances and scoring goals, so I’m looking forward to working with Harvey.”<\/p>\n
Hallgrimsson has also recalled veteran Preston wideman Robbie Brady in his 25-man panel after he missed the qualifying campaign with a calf injury.<\/p>\n
With key midfielder Josh Cullen injured, midfielder Alan Browne – who has impressed on loan for Middlesbrough from Sunderland – is included and could win his first cap since 2024.<\/p>\n
Sammie Szmodics also returns after missing most of the qualifying campaign, while there is a call-up for uncapped Luton Town goalkeeper Josh Keeley.<\/p>\n
Having salvaged their qualifying campaign with dramatic wins over Portugal and Hungary, the Republic of Ireland – who last qualified for the World Cup in 2002 – face the Czech Republic in Prague on 26 March (19:45 GMT). <\/p>\n
Victory for Hallgrimsson’s side would set up a play-off final at home to Denmark or North Macedonia on 31 March. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England Under-19 captain Harvey Vale has been called up to the Republic of Ireland squad for next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-533054","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\/533054","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=533054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}