{"id":863349,"date":"2026-03-31T20:55:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/863349\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T20:55:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:55:15","slug":"wales-and-northern-ireland-play-out-friendly-draw-at-cardiff-city-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/863349\/","title":{"rendered":"Wales and Northern Ireland play out friendly draw at Cardiff City Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iCTyfe\">From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it&#8217;s investigating the financials of Elon Musk&#8217;s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, &#8216;The A Word&#8217;, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iCTyfe\">At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iCTyfe\">The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"sc-1uza6dc-1 cglitp\">Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong>Read more<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/wales\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wales<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/northern-ireland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northern Ireland<\/a> shared a 1-1 friendly draw at Cardiff City Stadium as they tried to get World Cup heartbreak out of their system.<\/p>\n<p>Jamie Donley raised hopes of a first Northern Ireland victory in this fixture since Noel Brotherston\u2019s winner at Ninian Park 46 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>But Sorba Thomas secured a share of the spoils with an equaliser straight after the interval, extending Wales\u2019 unbeaten run against their visitors to 10 games \u2013 five wins and five draws.<\/p>\n<p>UEFA had insisted Thursday\u2019s beaten play-off semi-finalists \u2013 Wales had lost to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/italy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Italy<\/a> \u2013 met each other in a match ridiculed by many as a waste of time.<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, there were empty seats for a fixture that had been officially declared a sell-out weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>In the event, it was a decent contest but one that inevitably lacked the edge and jeopardy of a more meaningful affair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-863349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116325785771383893","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863349","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=863349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}