{"id":184003,"date":"2025-11-16T17:59:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T17:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/184003\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T17:59:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T17:59:19","slug":"world-cup-play-off-explainer-draw-date-format-and-history-as-ireland-await-their-fate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/184003\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup play-off explainer: Draw date, format and history as Ireland await their fate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ireland defender S\u00e9amus Coleman celebrates after the World Cup 2026 Group F qualifying win over Hungary at the Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Sports3294542.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Ireland defender S\u00e9amus Coleman celebrates after the World Cup 2026 Group F qualifying win over Hungary at the Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">So, after Troy Parrott\u2019s stunning hat-trick secured a remarkable 3-2 victory away to Hungary and secured second in the group, for Ireland it\u2019s all eyes on the play-offs in March with hopes of a first World Cup since 2002 still alive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Here is the lowdown on the play-off series for next summer\u2019s finals in North America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland defender S\u00e9amus Coleman celebrates after the World Cup 2026 Group F qualifying win over Hungary at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,17065,19,17,2723,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-184003","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-sean-oconnor","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115560682524740563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184003","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=184003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}