Chiedozie Ogbene starts for the Republic of Ireland against Portugal at a sold-out Aviva Stadium, as captain Seamus Coleman steps in to fill the void left by the injured Andrew Omobamidele in a back three.
Coleman will line up alongside John Egan and Shane Duffy, with Matt Doherty and Enda Stevens in the wing-back positions.
Jeff Hendrick, Josh Cullen and Jamie McGrath are the midfield three as boss Stephen Kenny opts to play Rotherham United's Ogbene off Callum Robinson.
It leaves James McClean and Adam Idah - both fancied to start - on the bench.
Portugal meanwhile have named star man Cristiano Ronaldo in their 11 but there are some notable absentees. Joao Cancelo, Ruben Dias, Diogo Jota - all one yellow card away from missing Sunday's crunch game against Serbia - are benched.
"We're just trying to improve ourselves, we are not perfect and we know that there are a lot of areas where we can still improve," Kenny said in the build-up to tonight's World Cup qualifier clash.
"We are still emerging. You can see the improvement but we have to work on a lot of other stuff, we have been doing that over the last few games and hopefully we can put in the performance that we need."
Follow the Republic of Ireland v Portugal via our liveblog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app, watch live on RTÉ 2 and the RTÉ Player, or listen to live radio commentary on 2fm's Game On.
