Ireland forward Troy Parrott is having an unforgettable week, mixed with a bit of his country’s penchant for luck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Parrott’s hat-trick helped Ireland cap off a dramatic rally against Hungary in World Cup qualifying to keep his team’s hopes of a spot in next summer’s tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I really can’t believe it, this is why we love football because things like this can happen, I love where I’m from, so this means the world to me, my family are here,” Parrott told Irish broadcast service RTE after the game. “This is the first time I have cried in years, I really, really can’t believe it.”<\/p>\n
Parrott’s late goal in the 3-2 win was his third of the night and his fifth in two games, allowing Ireland to leapfrog Hungary for second place in Group F of the European region (UEFA) qualifying round. Portugal subsequently won the group (thanks to a 9-1 win over Armenia) and booked one of Europe’s 12 direct spots for the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Ireland will now head to UEFA’s playoff round (composed of 16 other teams), where it will aim to be one of four additional European sides who’ll qualify for the World Cup in the summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Parrott struck both goals in the 2-0 win over Portugal last week and with Ireland trailing 2-1 going into the 80th minute at the Puskas Arena, he proved his country’s hero again.<\/p>\n
He lifted the ball over Hungary goalkeeper Denes Dibusz to level the match at 2-2 and with the clock running down, he converted from close range for the winner deep into added time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That led to incredible celebrations by both the Irish players and their Irish fans who had made the trip to the Hungarian capital of Budapest to watch an instant classic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Ireland forward Troy Parrott is having an unforgettable week, mixed with a bit of his country’s penchant for luck.\u00a0 Parrott’s hat-trick helped Ireland cap off a dramatic rally against Hungary in World Cup qualifying to keep his team’s hopes of a spot in next summer’s tournament.\u00a0 “I really can’t believe it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}