Irish Team Suffers Defeat to Lowest Ranked Team in Group from Armenia, Says Coach

The head coach of the Ireland national team, Heimir Hallgrimsson, has stated that he takes responsibility for the team’s defeat against Armenia in Yerevan and admitted that hopes for qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup are now nearly impossible.

Given the upcoming challenging qualifying matches against Portugal, both home and away, as well as a tough game in Budapest, this September phase was deemed crucial for Ireland’s hopes.

After losing by two goals at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, Ireland earned just one point in a match against Hungary (2:2), which is seen as a direct competitor for the top two positions in the group. The match against Armenia was considered a must-win.

However, the Irish were defeated by the lowest-ranked team in the group with a score of 1:2. This has created a sentiment in Ireland that their pursuit for a spot in the 2026 World Cup may be over before it even began. Hallgrimsson admitted all this after the game.

“Now everything has to be perfect; we no longer have the right to make mistakes. After this game, it’s hard to be optimistic that we will go to Portugal and win with the performance we showed today. Almost everything went wrong during the 90 minutes in Yerevan, both in defense and in attack. I must say that Armenia deserved to earn three points. There were far more negative aspects in our game today than positive ones, that’s for sure,” the 58-year-old coach said.