{"id":667412,"date":"2026-03-31T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=667412"},"modified":"2026-03-30T11:09:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T15:09:47","slug":"ireland-predicted-lineup-team-news-macedonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/03\/31\/ireland-predicted-lineup-team-news-macedonia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland Predicted Lineup &#038; Team News vs Macedonia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is an Ireland predicted lineup and the latest team news for their friendly with North Macedonia. This is a rather sombre affair as both sides lost semi-final ties in the World Cup play-off and now have to face off in a match that most fans would rather forget. This is particularly true of the Irish squad who squandered a 2-0 lead in Czechia to lose on penalties. We&#8217;re going to predict and hope for an experimental lineup that sets up the Euro&#8217;s campaign effectively.<\/p>\n<h2>Ireland Predicted Lineup vs North Macedonia<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"6dfbdbe8ed6ff2eb8f8e8ee3c2cef8f4\" image-id=\"wennRfcuRKZV\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 5568px; aspect-ratio: 5568\/3712;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<div class=\"sf-preview-content-holder\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: 500px;\"><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"6dfbdbe8ed6ff2eb8f8e8ee3c2cef8f4\" image-id=\"wennRfcuRKZV\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 5568px; aspect-ratio: 1.5 \/ 1; --canvas-wedge-error-size: 5568; --sf-original-width: 5568; --sf-original-height: 3712; --sf-is-portrait: 0; --sf-is-landscape: 1;\" preview-mode=\"\" tabindex=\"0\"><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>How The Republic of Ireland Have Lined Up Recently<\/h3>\n<p>Caomhin Kelleher has been the number one goalkeeper for some time. Jake O&#8217;Brien, Nathan Collins, and Dara O&#8217;Shea have been trusted as the main back three of a five. Liam Scales and Seamus Coleman are the preferred wing-backs with Ryan Manning as a possible option to offer rest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/03\/26\/ireland-vs-czech-republic-confirmed-lineups-march\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Ireland vs Czechia Confirmed Lineups for March 26<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In midfield, the main duo in the middle is Jayson Molumby with either Jack Taylor or Josh Cullen. Finn Azaz operates as an 8\/10 hybrid with Chiedozie Ogbene and Troy Parrott as the main striking duo for OOP work.<\/p>\n<h3>Ireland Recent Form &amp; Tactics<\/h3>\n<p>Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson sets his team up in the 3-4-2-1\/3-5-2 setup that is being utilised across Europe by teams like Brentford, Wrexham, and others to good results. It allows the team a striking duo to chase long-balls and press out of possession, the wing-backs offer width while the back three, in theory, offers stability but can also ship a lot of goals when under pressure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/07\/22\/best-chelsea-players-number-10-jersey\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Best Chelsea Players to Wear the Number 10 Jersey Ever<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After a miraculous run of wins that saw the Boys in Green sneak into the World Cup play-offs, they suffered a crushing defeat to Czechia in the semi-final. The big issue is their defending, they let in two goals to Hungary and Czechia, they had a good run of scoring goals that got them through but their midfield and attack can&#8217;t be trusted to score three goals in every outing.<\/p>\n<h3>Ireland Team News<\/h3>\n<p>After being suspended, Scales is back available for this one. Robbie Brady is unavailable after coming on as a substitute, Sammy Szmodics is injured, as is Taylor. Portsmouth man Millanic Ali has been called in as the sole injury replacement.<\/p>\n<p>There will likely be some fatigue after playing 120 minutes just a few days ago so harder workers like Coleman, Manning, or Ogbene could be rested. Particularly, there is one eye on who could replace Coleman as the regular wing-back on the right flank so we could see some interesting selections here.<\/p>\n<h3>Republic of Ireland Predicted Lineup vs Macedonia<\/h3>\n<p>GK &#8211; Caoimhin Kelleher<\/p>\n<p>WB &#8211; Liam Scales<\/p>\n<p>CB &#8211; Nathan Collins<\/p>\n<p>CB &#8211; James Abankwah<\/p>\n<p>CB &#8211; Jimmy Dunne<\/p>\n<p>WB &#8211; Alan Browne<\/p>\n<p>CM &#8211; Jason Knight<\/p>\n<p>CM &#8211; Jayson Molumby<\/p>\n<p>CM\/AM &#8211; Harvey Vale<\/p>\n<p>AM\/ST &#8211; Millenic Alli<\/p>\n<p>ST &#8211; Adam Idah<\/p>\n<p><strong>Featured Image Credits<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"tw-m-0 tw-text-sm xl:tw-text-base tw-leading-5 tw-flex tw-gap-1\">IMAGO \/\u00a0Inpho Photography<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is an Ireland predicted lineup and the latest team news for their friendly with North Macedonia. This is a rather sombre affair as both sides lost semi-final ties in the World Cup play-off and now have to face off in a match that most fans would rather forget. This is particularly true of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2013,"featured_media":667433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[161,30,1831],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-667412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-football","category-news","category-starting-line-up"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667412"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667437,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667412\/revisions\/667437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}