Shiels full of confidence that his girls will deliver
Boss keen to ease the pressure with NI on the verge of a play-off berth
“THERE is no alternative for us, not winning is not an option. It’s not an option.” Kenny Shiels’ last words on the biggest game the Northern Ireland women’s team has ever faced couldn’t have been more to the point.
After speaking about expectation, how to manage it and the confidence he has in his players, the Northern Ireland manager summed it all up quite simply. Winning is everything. Defeat is likely to leave them with nothing.
After making history on Friday night, beating Belarus 3-2 to record three consecutive competitive victories for the first time, a fourth would see this team break more new ground.
It would take them further than any other Northern Ireland women’s team has been before. A win over the Faroe Islands at Seaview tonight would secure second place in a group for the first time and book a place in next spring’s Women’s Euro 2022 play-offs.
Shiels has won trophies as a manager in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland and internationally he took the Northern Ireland Under-17s to the European finals in 2004.
Now he is on the brink of guiding the women’s international team to being one step from the same stage and he has seen enough in his squad to make him believe that they can complete the job and look ahead to two more massive games in April next year.
“I can draw on my experiences, but the players have to do that individually too and, irrespective of being favourite or underdog, we have to manage our expectations,” he said.
“How I put that across has to be so that I don’t put pressure on them, but the other side of that is I don’t see them getting overconfident.
“I think there will be a level of confidence, enough to help them to win the game and that is what we expect all the time.
“The girls know the script by now and what they have to do. There is also the demand that it has put on them mentally and physically.
“They have come all this way to get to a pinnacle and are on the cusp of getting to the play-offs and they will deliver. I’m really confident that they can deliver.”
Julie Nelson will add another cap to her record tally of 112 — only Pat Jennings and Steven Davis have played more times in a Northern Ireland shirt.
She has been on board for the entire journey since the Irish FA resurrected the women’s international team in 2004. Now in her eighth qualifying campaign, having more than pride at stake in the final game is a novel experienced for Nelson and, at 35-yearsold, she is relishing the matches getting bigger and bigger.
“Friday night was what we were saying was the biggest game and now obviously this is the biggest game now,” she said.
“I don’t really think there are any words to describe what it would mean for us to make it to the play-offs.
“It’s not something that we ever considered being in, to be in this position with a team like the Faroe Islands to play it’s just absolutely incredible.
“Ashley Hutton (who has also been in the squad since 2004) and I were talking about it — we’ve come so far now and it’s just amazing.”