{"id":100895,"date":"2025-10-03T09:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/100895\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T09:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:43:09","slug":"seamus-coleman-and-john-egan-return-to-ireland-squad-for-world-cup-qualifiers-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/100895\/","title":{"rendered":"S\u00e9amus Coleman and John Egan return to Ireland squad for World Cup qualifiers \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/republic-of-ireland-mnt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/republic-of-ireland-mnt\" target=\"_blank\">Republic of Ireland<\/a> captains <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/seamus-coleman\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/seamus-coleman\" target=\"_blank\">S\u00e9amus Coleman<\/a> and John Egan have been recalled to a 24-man squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Portugal and Armenia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Ireland manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/heimir-hallgrimsson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/heimir-hallgrimsson\" target=\"_blank\">Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> hopes to add <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/troy-parrott\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/troy-parrott\" target=\"_blank\">Troy Parrott<\/a> to his squad after the Portugal game providing the striker continues his recovery from a knee injury by lining out for his Dutch club AZ Alkmaar this weekend. The striker will then join with the squad in Dublin on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Injuries to Matt Doherty (wrist operation), Bosun Lawal (hamstring) and Jason Knight (groin) prompted Hallgr\u00edmsson to recall Coleman, Egan and Jayson Molumby, who bring 138 caps worth of experience and a leadership that was glaringly absent in the September window when Ireland drew 2-2 at home to Hungary and lost 2-1 in Armenia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The injured trio are not expected to recover in time for the November games at home to Portugal and Hungary in Budapest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Nathan Collins is expected to continue as the Ireland captain despite the return of Coleman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cS\u00e9amus is back in,\u201d said Hallgr\u00edmsson. \u201cI\u2019ve been criticised for not picking and will probably be criticised now for picking him. He is fit and ready to play and do everything for his country. He is in for football reasons but of course he will bring experience and leadership skills into this squad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Egan\u2019s last cap came against the Netherlands in September 2023 as the 32-year-old subsequently suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Southampton midfielder Will Smallbone also returns to the squad while Istanbul Ba\u015fak\u015fehir winger Festy Ebosele and Ferencv\u00e1ros winger Callum O\u2019Dowda are recalled after impressive displays for their Turkish and Hungarian clubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Killian Philips and Jimmy Dunne have been overlooked for selection while Shamrock Rovers wing back Josh Honahan also missed the cut despite replacing Sammie Szmodics last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Szmodics, who missed the defeat in Yerevan, has returned to fitness at Ipswich Town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Robbie Brady is still unavailable with a calf injury having also missed the September window.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The FAI have sold 40,000 tickets for the Armenia game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt was a one-off, hopefully, in Armenia,\u201d said Hallgr\u00edmsson. \u201cShould we then totally change course and do something different with other players? I think that would be a wrong thing to do, definitely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cSecondly, the players will relish this camp to answer for Armenia and I would like to give them that chance. That is one of the reasons why we believe in this group of players. They have the quality to qualify for the US in the summer but what I think and what I say is not the most important. It is what they say and what they believe and they will hopefully show you in this camp that they can play for this nation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Republic of Ireland squad<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\"><b>Goalkeepers:<\/b> Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher (Brentford), Gavin Bazunu (Southampton), Mark Travers (Everton).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\"><b>Defenders:<\/b> S\u00e9amus Coleman (Everton), Jake O\u2019Brien (Everton), Nathan Collins (Brentford), Dara O\u2019Shea (Ipswich Town), Liam Scales (Celtic), John Egan (Hull City), Ryan Manning (Southampton), Callum O\u2019Dowda (Ferencvaros). <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\"><b>Midfielders:<\/b> Josh Cullen (Burnley), Will Smallbone (Millwall), Jack Taylor (Ipswich Town), Jayson Molumby (West Bromwich Albion), Finn Azaz (Southampton).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\"><b>Attackers:<\/b> Evan Ferguson (AS Roma), Troy Parrott (AZ Alkmaar), Adam Idah (Swansea City), Sammie Szmodics (Ipswich Town), Mikey Johnston (West Bromwich Albion), Chiedozie Ogbene (Sheffield United), Festy Ebosele (Istanbul Ba\u015fak\u015fehir), Kasey McAteer (Ipswich Town).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Fixtures<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\"><b>Saturday, October 11th:<\/b> Portugal v Republic of Ireland, Est\u00e1dio Jos\u00e9 Alvalade, Lisbon, 7.45pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\"><b>Tuesday, October 14th: <\/b>Republic of Ireland v Armenia, Aviva Stadium, 7.45pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Republic of Ireland captains S\u00e9amus Coleman and John Egan have been recalled to a 24-man squad for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,17065,19,17,6634,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-100895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}