The moment of truth is here for the dentist. Will Heimir Halgrimsson and the boys in green be checking out Skyscanner on Sunday night or will we all be facing into the bottom of the bottle and more years of international wilderness? To help propel us to the World Cup next summer, Cian gives an inspirational team talk to the Ireland team that will no doubt fire them to victory on Thursday and Sunday. That's right, we want six points from these two matches. Up first, Ireland play Portugal on Thursday night on what we hope is a barely playable Aviva Stadium pitch (after a rugby friendly and the FAI Cup Final this past weekend), before heading to the Puskás Aréna on Sunday for a showdown against Hungary. We hope that results go our way on Thursday night to ensure Sunday's match is meaningful, but it would be in line with our fortunes over the past few years that Ireland will be out of contention before we even kick off against the Hungarians. We live in hope.
Elsewhere, the FAI have voted overwhelmingly in favour of Israel being banned from UEFA competitions in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, with the motion to be brought before UEFA in coming weeks.
