Hungary’s victory in Yerevan earlier on Thursday simplified the situation for the Republic of Ireland. <\/p>\n
Knowing defeat would end their qualifying hopes, they needed to produce the best performance of the Hallgrimsson era against the 2016 European champions.<\/p>\n
And while Evan Ferguson’s injury robbed the Irish of their top scorer, Parrott stepped up in spectacular fashion. <\/p>\n
The AZ Alkmaar forward, who has six goals in seven Eredivisie games this season, led the line with energy and intensity, forcing Portugal keeper Diogo Costa into a mistake while attempting to clear the ball after 15 minutes.<\/p>\n
From the resulting corner, Jack Taylor found Liam Scales at the far post, with the Celtic defender’s header back into the six-yard area turned in by Parrott. <\/p>\n
Sensing opportunities against a shaky Portuguese backline, Chiedozie Ogbene also looked threatening for the hosts and nearly doubled the lead when he cut inside and struck a post with a curling right-foot shot. <\/p>\n
With seconds remaining in the first half, Parrott handed the Irish their first two-goal lead in two years when he cut inside Ruben Neves and beat Costa at his near post, sparking ecstatic scenes among the home fans in Dublin. <\/p>\n
The Republic of Ireland would have expected a strong response from the visitors, and while Caoimhin Kelleher produced a fine save to deny Goncalo Ramos, the hosts were able to comfortably see the game out and complete a famous win over the team ranked fifth in the world. <\/p>\n
It is the Republic of Ireland’s first competitive win over Portugal in seven attempts stretching back to 1995 and a vital boost in their bid to reach the World Cup for the first time since 2002. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hungary’s victory in Yerevan earlier on Thursday simplified the situation for the Republic of Ireland. Knowing defeat would…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":377347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-377346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115545782546355518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}