WELL, HERE WE are then, at the precipice of a World Cup play-off which first felt unimaginable and then felt like it would never come.
You’ll surely know the permutations by now, but for the record: Ireland must beat Czechia tonight – on penalties if necessary – to set up a play-off final against the winner of Denmark v North Macedonia in Dublin next Tuesday night.
Put the task into context and it seems faintly cruel that Ireland still have so much to do to qualify: Ireland have progressed from just three of 10 World Cup play-offs, and without ever winning both games. Plus, the last time Ireland won five straight competitive games was in 1989, a run that included a couple of games against Malta. Oh, and they must also overcome a rotten record in Prague: they have lost seven of their nine visits here, with their sole win coming against Czechoslovakia in 1967.
Ireland will therefore have to string together the best run of results in their history if they are going to pull this off.
And yet all talk with conviction that they are going to do it. Perhaps there’s a risk of becoming stogged in the memories of last November, but Hallgrimsson has this week been stressing the majesty of what the squad did in Budapest, hoping to use it as a kind of memory foam into which the Irish players can roll back into amid different surrounds and different pressures tonight in Prague. Hey, it’s a cheap kind of sports psychologist.
“It is hard to explain without being there, but there was such a belief that week,” said Seamus Coleman of November’s miracle at yesterday’s pre-match press conference.
Coleman has played all of 10 minutes for Everton since Budapest, but insists he is fit and ready to go. Given he played all of two minutes in the lead-in to November before starting both games, nobody is minded to doubt him.
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That Nathan Collins and not Coleman is captain is a curiosity and totally irrelevant: he is the team’s spiritual leader and his driving of standards and his uncompromising attitude towards hard work helped to salvage this campaign.
Coleman celebrates in Budapest. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
Hallgrimsson hopes to maintain the momentum from November and plans to retain the same approach. Expect the system to cleave broadly to the same 3-4-2-1, while the approach will be similar, Hallgrimsson saying that Ireland could not afford to be “overly-ambitious.”
While Ireland have no fresh injury concerns, a concerning number of Irish players are fit but not match-fit. Coleman may not be a worry on this front, but Chiedozie Ogbene, Robbie Brady, and Adam Idah have managed 75 minutes of football between them since the start of February, while Stoke manager Mark Robins is telling all who will listen that Bosun Lawal is not fit to be included in the squad.
Hallgrimsson insists he is not worried about the players’ fitness levels, but the weight of risk rises with each of these players added to the starting line-up. Of them, Ogbene is most important, given no other Irish attacker has his pace and his strength in 50/50 duels. He also wins Ireland territory, given that no Irish player won more fouls across the qualifying campaign.
The Irish staff are encouraged by the fact Ogbene is fit and has been playing for Sheffield United’s U21s, amid the Kafkaesque nightmare of his being omitted from squads because the club have exceeded their quota of loan players.
Caoimhín Kelleher, Coleman, Nathan Collins, and Jake O’Brien are a lock to start, with a decision to be made as to who replaced the suspended Liam Scales at left-back. Ryan Manning may have the edge here, though Brady is a favourite of Hallgrimsson’s and was key to the formation that was junked in his absence after the nightmare in Yerevan.
Ireland’s biggest blow was confirmed months ago, with Josh Cullen rupturing his ACL at the turn of the year. The public message has been to play down Cullen’s absence but only Kelleher or Troy Parrott would have been a greater miss for Ireland, given their lack of a like-for-like replacement. Jayson Molumby is now held in high regard and will start, with the question as to who will partner him: pick one from Jack Taylor, Jason Knight, and Alan Browne. Taylor’s height and physicality may give him the edge. Finn Azaz closed out the Budapest win in Cullen’s position, but that was a last-ditch gamble to chase the game and would be too great a risk from the start.
Azaz will likely start further forward, in one of the two positions off Parrott: Azaz has a habit of drifting through games but has consistently come up with vital creative interventions. If Ogbene is not deemed ready to start, Harvey Vale could be pitched into starting less than a fortnight after being declared eligible. Sammie Szmodics is back in the squad and is another contender for this role, too.
Ireland need Parrott to retain his magic touch if they are to qualify, but, even allowing for his terrific form, there’s a gnawing concern that this is unsustainable: his five goals in November came from a total of just six shots on target.
Hallgrimsson has not spent very long practising penalties, under the principle that it is impossible to replicate the pressure of a shootout in training. In the event tonight’s game goes the distance, he must hope Kelleher replicates his outlandish record. A huge amount rests on Kelleher more generally. While Ireland conceded seven goals in qualifying, their Expected Goals Against total was 10.3: no team across all of qualifying outperformed defensive expectations to Ireland’s extent.
Kelleher and Parrott: Ireland's most important players. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
At the time of the play-off draw last November, we took a look under the Czech bonnet and liked what we saw: a team that lost to the Faroe Islands in qualifying and whose players appeared to be in open revolt against supporters, a skirmish after which Tomas Soucek was stripped of the captaincy. But their sacking the previous coach and hiring 74-year-old Miroslav Koubek has changed the mood. He does not traffic in sophistication: he said at his squad announcement that he was selecting not players but “soldiers for a war” and he has a style of play ready to echo that.
He has elected to leave out Vaclav Cerny of Besiktas, despite the fact he was their leading creative player in qualifying: only seven players created more chances across all of qualifying than Cerny.
Koubek has favoured a back three system during his long tenure at club level, and should he choose to import the same system to the international team, it will allow them fit their trio of attackers into the same team: Patrik Schick of Bayer Leverkusen, Pavel Sulc of Lyon, and Tomas Chory of Slavia Prague. There are murmurings in the Czech press that Soucek will be dropped in favour of the returning Vladimír Darida, who captained the Czechs at Euro 2020 before announcing his international retirement. He has answered Koubek’s call to end his exile and help them to a first World Cup appearance since 2006.
Soucek has been replaced as captain by Wolves’ defender Ladislav Krejci: the Czech FA stripped Soucek of the honour after a flashpoint with supporters at the end of last year, in which the players did not applaud some fans because, as Soucek explained, they did not feel sufficiently supported by the ultras group after a shocking loss to the Faroe Islands.
This context explains Koubek’s pre-game pleading to fans to turn up and support his players against Ireland.
This seems to be the biggest difference between sides of similar strength and style: the concord between Irish players and fans is much happier.
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“It’s incredible, it’s what this football team can do,” says Coleman. “I’ve said it before the results last time: this football team can lift the nation and we were proved right with that. We’re so grateful for their support, we’re so grateful that they’re getting here anyway they can, many flights, trains, whatever way they can to be part of it.
“As long as our supporters know that we don’t take that for granted and we want to give them another good night tonight.”
Perhaps this sense of feeling will make all the difference.
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Ireland to avoid being 'overly-ambitious' on their defining night in Prague
WELL, HERE WE are then, at the precipice of a World Cup play-off which first felt unimaginable and then felt like it would never come.
You’ll surely know the permutations by now, but for the record: Ireland must beat Czechia tonight – on penalties if necessary – to set up a play-off final against the winner of Denmark v North Macedonia in Dublin next Tuesday night.
Put the task into context and it seems faintly cruel that Ireland still have so much to do to qualify: Ireland have progressed from just three of 10 World Cup play-offs, and without ever winning both games. Plus, the last time Ireland won five straight competitive games was in 1989, a run that included a couple of games against Malta. Oh, and they must also overcome a rotten record in Prague: they have lost seven of their nine visits here, with their sole win coming against Czechoslovakia in 1967.
Ireland will therefore have to string together the best run of results in their history if they are going to pull this off.
And yet all talk with conviction that they are going to do it. Perhaps there’s a risk of becoming stogged in the memories of last November, but Hallgrimsson has this week been stressing the majesty of what the squad did in Budapest, hoping to use it as a kind of memory foam into which the Irish players can roll back into amid different surrounds and different pressures tonight in Prague. Hey, it’s a cheap kind of sports psychologist.
“It is hard to explain without being there, but there was such a belief that week,” said Seamus Coleman of November’s miracle at yesterday’s pre-match press conference.
Coleman has played all of 10 minutes for Everton since Budapest, but insists he is fit and ready to go. Given he played all of two minutes in the lead-in to November before starting both games, nobody is minded to doubt him.
That Nathan Collins and not Coleman is captain is a curiosity and totally irrelevant: he is the team’s spiritual leader and his driving of standards and his uncompromising attitude towards hard work helped to salvage this campaign.
Hallgrimsson hopes to maintain the momentum from November and plans to retain the same approach. Expect the system to cleave broadly to the same 3-4-2-1, while the approach will be similar, Hallgrimsson saying that Ireland could not afford to be “overly-ambitious.”
While Ireland have no fresh injury concerns, a concerning number of Irish players are fit but not match-fit. Coleman may not be a worry on this front, but Chiedozie Ogbene, Robbie Brady, and Adam Idah have managed 75 minutes of football between them since the start of February, while Stoke manager Mark Robins is telling all who will listen that Bosun Lawal is not fit to be included in the squad.
Hallgrimsson insists he is not worried about the players’ fitness levels, but the weight of risk rises with each of these players added to the starting line-up. Of them, Ogbene is most important, given no other Irish attacker has his pace and his strength in 50/50 duels. He also wins Ireland territory, given that no Irish player won more fouls across the qualifying campaign.
The Irish staff are encouraged by the fact Ogbene is fit and has been playing for Sheffield United’s U21s, amid the Kafkaesque nightmare of his being omitted from squads because the club have exceeded their quota of loan players.
Caoimhín Kelleher, Coleman, Nathan Collins, and Jake O’Brien are a lock to start, with a decision to be made as to who replaced the suspended Liam Scales at left-back. Ryan Manning may have the edge here, though Brady is a favourite of Hallgrimsson’s and was key to the formation that was junked in his absence after the nightmare in Yerevan.
Ireland’s biggest blow was confirmed months ago, with Josh Cullen rupturing his ACL at the turn of the year. The public message has been to play down Cullen’s absence but only Kelleher or Troy Parrott would have been a greater miss for Ireland, given their lack of a like-for-like replacement. Jayson Molumby is now held in high regard and will start, with the question as to who will partner him: pick one from Jack Taylor, Jason Knight, and Alan Browne. Taylor’s height and physicality may give him the edge. Finn Azaz closed out the Budapest win in Cullen’s position, but that was a last-ditch gamble to chase the game and would be too great a risk from the start.
Azaz will likely start further forward, in one of the two positions off Parrott: Azaz has a habit of drifting through games but has consistently come up with vital creative interventions. If Ogbene is not deemed ready to start, Harvey Vale could be pitched into starting less than a fortnight after being declared eligible. Sammie Szmodics is back in the squad and is another contender for this role, too.
Ireland need Parrott to retain his magic touch if they are to qualify, but, even allowing for his terrific form, there’s a gnawing concern that this is unsustainable: his five goals in November came from a total of just six shots on target.
Hallgrimsson has not spent very long practising penalties, under the principle that it is impossible to replicate the pressure of a shootout in training. In the event tonight’s game goes the distance, he must hope Kelleher replicates his outlandish record. A huge amount rests on Kelleher more generally. While Ireland conceded seven goals in qualifying, their Expected Goals Against total was 10.3: no team across all of qualifying outperformed defensive expectations to Ireland’s extent.
At the time of the play-off draw last November, we took a look under the Czech bonnet and liked what we saw: a team that lost to the Faroe Islands in qualifying and whose players appeared to be in open revolt against supporters, a skirmish after which Tomas Soucek was stripped of the captaincy. But their sacking the previous coach and hiring 74-year-old Miroslav Koubek has changed the mood. He does not traffic in sophistication: he said at his squad announcement that he was selecting not players but “soldiers for a war” and he has a style of play ready to echo that.
He has elected to leave out Vaclav Cerny of Besiktas, despite the fact he was their leading creative player in qualifying: only seven players created more chances across all of qualifying than Cerny.
Koubek has favoured a back three system during his long tenure at club level, and should he choose to import the same system to the international team, it will allow them fit their trio of attackers into the same team: Patrik Schick of Bayer Leverkusen, Pavel Sulc of Lyon, and Tomas Chory of Slavia Prague. There are murmurings in the Czech press that Soucek will be dropped in favour of the returning Vladimír Darida, who captained the Czechs at Euro 2020 before announcing his international retirement. He has answered Koubek’s call to end his exile and help them to a first World Cup appearance since 2006.
Soucek has been replaced as captain by Wolves’ defender Ladislav Krejci: the Czech FA stripped Soucek of the honour after a flashpoint with supporters at the end of last year, in which the players did not applaud some fans because, as Soucek explained, they did not feel sufficiently supported by the ultras group after a shocking loss to the Faroe Islands.
This context explains Koubek’s pre-game pleading to fans to turn up and support his players against Ireland.
This seems to be the biggest difference between sides of similar strength and style: the concord between Irish players and fans is much happier.
“It’s incredible, it’s what this football team can do,” says Coleman. “I’ve said it before the results last time: this football team can lift the nation and we were proved right with that. We’re so grateful for their support, we’re so grateful that they’re getting here anyway they can, many flights, trains, whatever way they can to be part of it.
“As long as our supporters know that we don’t take that for granted and we want to give them another good night tonight.”
Perhaps this sense of feeling will make all the difference.
Ireland (Possible XI): Kelleher; Coleman, O’Brien, Collins, O’Shea, Manning; Molumby, Taylor; Ogbene, Azaz; Parrott
Czechia (Possible XI): Kovar; Coufal; Holes, Krejci, Hranac; Jurasek; Darida, Provod; Sulc; Chory, Schick
On TV: RTE Two; KO: 7.45pm
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2026 world cup playoff big match preview Czechia Republic Of Ireland