{"id":614432,"date":"2025-12-05T19:37:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/614432\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T19:37:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:37:22","slug":"2026-world-cup-northern-ireland-could-face-canada-switzerland-and-qatar-if-they-qualify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/614432\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 World Cup: Northern Ireland could face Canada, Switzerland and Qatar if they qualify"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Northern Ireland will face hosts Canada, Qatar and Switzerland in Group B of the World Cup if they come through March&#8217;s tricky play-off. <\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Michael O&#8217;Neill&#8217;s side finished third in their qualifying group behind Germany and Slovakia, but still booked a play-off spot thanks to their Nations League finish in 2024. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Northern Ireland face a difficult play-off semi-final in Italy, who have not played at the World Cup since 2014, on 26 March in Path A.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If they can stun the Italians, then O&#8217;Neill&#8217;s young squad would travel to Wales or Bosnia-Herzegovina in the play-off final, and the winner of that match would progress to the finals in the USA, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hosts Canada would await in the opening game in Toronto on 12 June, before matches with Switzerland, in California on 18 June, and a final group match with Qatar in Seattle on 24 June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Northern Ireland last played in the 1986 World Cup, which was also held in Mexico. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They also played in the 1958 and 1982 tournaments. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland will face hosts Canada, Qatar and Switzerland in Group B of the World Cup if they&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-614432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115668650865071887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614432","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=614432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}