{"id":1616,"date":"2025-11-20T15:00:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=1616"},"modified":"2025-11-20T15:00:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:00:03","slug":"world-cup-2026-play-off-draw-wales-host-bosnia-northern-ireland-visit-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=1616","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026 play-off draw: Wales host Bosnia, Northern Ireland visit Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This is a play-off path laden with storylines for Wales, who have struck lucky once again when it comes to securing home advantage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Since this format of single-leg semi-finals and finals was introduced, Wales have played all four of their matches at Cardiff City Stadium. By March next year, that could be six out of six.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">First, they will need to win their semi-final at home to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Wales clinched qualification for Euro 2016, their first major tournament for 58 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Then there could be a final at home to Italy, who lost on their most recent visit to Cardiff in 2002 with current Wales head coach Craig Bellamy scoring the winner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gennaro Gattuso, now Italy boss, came on as a substitute in that 2-1 defeat at what was then known as the Millennium Stadium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Four-time World Cup winners Italy are the highest-ranked nation in the play-offs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Difficult matches lie in wait for Wales, but they will fancy their chances of qualifying for a second successive World Cup, and only a third in their history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a play-off path laden with storylines for Wales, who have struck lucky once again when it comes to securing home advantage. Since this format of single-leg semi-finals and finals was introduced, Wales have played all four of their matches at Cardiff City Stadium. By March next year, that could be six out of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}