{"id":586175,"date":"2025-11-22T05:50:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T05:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/586175\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T05:50:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T05:50:32","slug":"irish-league-football-northern-irelands-success-has-been-underpinned-by-our-top-flight-says-david-jeffrey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/586175\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish League football: Northern Ireland&#8217;s success has been underpinned by our top-flight, says David Jeffrey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"We should never overlook the role the Irish League plays in developing Northern Ireland internationals\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/b8344229-e387-4038-84f9-f84355e9d029.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">We should never overlook the role the Irish League plays in developing Northern Ireland internationals<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It\u2019s fair to say the draw for the World Cup Play-Offs was not kind to Northern Ireland. If Michael O\u2019Neill\u2019s men can beat Italy on a Thursday night and then one of Wales or Bosnia-Herzegovina a few days later, both away, then it will be one of the biggest achievements in the history of our national team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It would be right up there with the victory over Italy at Windsor Park in 1958, or that famous night in Valencia in 1982. That\u2019s how incredible it would be if our boys made it to the World Cup in USA, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We should never overlook the role the Irish League plays in developing Northern Ireland internationals It\u2019s fair to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[143458,1144,8538,8542,8541,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-586175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-david-jeffrey","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","11":"tag-south-belfast-sport","12":"tag-sports-direct-premiership","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115591789665437167","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}