{"id":287035,"date":"2026-01-16T05:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/287035\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T05:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:52:10","slug":"new-czech-republic-manager-describes-irelands-football-as-simple-ahead-of-world-cup-playoff-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/287035\/","title":{"rendered":"New Czech Republic manager describes Ireland\u2019s football as \u2018simple\u2019 ahead of World Cup playoff \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The new Czech Republic manager Miroslav Koubek has described the Republic of Ireland as a team that play \u201csimple and straightforward football\u201d ahead of the World Cup playoff in Prague on March 26th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The 74-year-old was appointed in December on a two and a half year contract after the Czech FA sacked Ivan Ha\u0161ek during qualification following a 2-1 defeat to the Faroe Islands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI watched all of Ireland\u2019s qualifying matches, and now I\u2019m halfway through watching Denmark\u2019s performances,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re analysing their defensive and offensive set pieces; there\u2019s a lot to take in, so it\u2019s crucial to figure out what might work against our opponents in terms of line-up and player type. We\u2019re facing tough opponents, but that\u2019s part of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe Irish are a team with heart, they play simple and straightforward football, and they are very aggressive and intense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">If Ireland overcome the Czechs they will face either Denmark or North Macedonia at the Aviva Stadium on March 31st.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe Danes are more football-oriented with an excellent attack,\u201d Koubek added. \u201cThey may have some problems at the back, but I wouldn\u2019t want to specify that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new Czech Republic manager Miroslav Koubek has described the Republic of Ireland as a team that play&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[11022,18,19,17,6634,132,35350],"class_list":{"0":"post-287035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-czech-republic","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115903223823409003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287035","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=287035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}