O’Neill: players were in tears at the cruel nature of their defeat
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Northern Ireland were hoping to qualify for their first World Cup finals since 1986 and yesterday was the 32nd anniversary of Billy Bingham’s boys securing their place in Mexico with a scoreless draw against England at Wembley.
But instead of the players making history, many were left in tears as the pain of failing to reach their first ever World Cup finals was too much to bear.
“Of course they’re emotional, they’re upset, there were players in tears,” O’Neill said.
“It is a huge disappointment, for these players it is unlikely a World Cup is going to come round again. What we got out of them is more than I could ever have asked for, to be honest.”
The performance was a huge contract to the disappointing display last Thursday in Belfast.
“The performance of players was phenomenal,” added O’Neill.
“We continued to push and dream. That’s what we asked. They gave us that and more. As a manager you can’t ask for more then what we got.
“We’ve gone toe to toe with a very good side. It was decided by a real poor decision and a penalty that should never have been.”
With Chris Brunt, Aaron Hughes and Gareth McAuley likely to give serious thought to international retirement with the next competitive game not until next September, this could now be a crossroads for this Northern Ireland team after five years of progress under O’Neill’s management.
It is understood Scotland and Sunderland are interested in having O’Neill as their new manager.
But when asked about his future, he said that no one should be rushing into any decisions.
“As I said to the players themselves, there is no need to make any rash decisions on anything they want to do,” he said.
“I know it’s a difficult time, to make decisions about going forward. These players have had long established Northern Ireland careers. For me they’ve got time to make that decision. There is a lot of time for consideration on that.” NORTHERN Ireland football will forever be haunted by the spectre of referee Ovidiu Hategan.
The Romanian official, who awarded Switzerland the controversial first-leg penalty at Windsor Park last Thursday, will go down as the man who ended Northern Ireland’s World Cup dream.
Ricardo Rodriguez’s spot kick in Belfast was enough to see Switzerland qualify 1-0 on aggregate for the World Cup finals, following last night’s scoreless draw at the St Jakob-Park in Basel.
Michael O’Neill’s brave warriors fought heroically in vain to score the goal needed to keep their World Cup aspirations alive. Right at the death, Jonny Evans had a header cleared off the line — and it had to be Rodriguez who was Switzerland’s saviour. It just wasn’t meant to be.
O’Neill had promised that, following a rather nervous and flat display at Windsor, his players would raise their game and give a performance the country could be proud of. They did just that.
Switzerland may have created the more clear-cut chances but it was Northern Ireland who won plenty of acclaim for giving their all in terrible conditions.
The players and backroom team were crestfallen at the final whistle as the 34,000 Swiss fans waved their flags and celebrated with the jubilant players in red who had just secured their passage through to Russia next summer.
Steven Davis sank to his knees, absolutely distraught.
Boss O’Neill, though, was soon picking him up and embracing his proud skipper, consoling the man who has led his team for five years with such distinction.
The Northern Ireland manager made sure he then went round and hugged every single player and member of his staff, having some special words for Chris Brunt and Gareth McAuley.
This was not how O’Neill wanted his World Cup campaign to end.
The Swiss, as expected, started the same team that won in such controversial circumstances in Belfast while O’Neill made four changes.
Aaron Hughes came in for Conor McLaughlin to win his 109th cap and take over from the great Bobby Moore as the UK’s most capped defender, George Saville was given his first Northern Ireland start in place of the suspended Corry Evans, while Jamie Ward and Conor Washington were preferred ahead of Kyle Lafferty and Josh Magennis.
The skies of Basel erupted with thunder and spectacular lightning just three hours before kick-off and the torrential rain was relentless throughout the afternoon. The pitch was saturated. The St Jakob Park groundstaff worked tirelessly right up until kick-off — forking and then sanding the surface. An hour before the start, German referee Felix Brych inspected the pitch — and only gave the match the go-ahead after a second look.
The pitch was bumpy and brutal to play on, the rain continued to pour down and there were 1,800 members of the Green and White Army packed into a tight corner of the stadium singing and chanting their hearts out while hundreds more were scattered amongst the home sup-
Switzerland win 1-0 on aggregate SWITZERLAND: Sommer, Lichtsteiner, 75 mins), Davis, Norwood (Magennis, Schar, Akanji, Rodriguez, Shaqiri (Freuler, 75 mins), Saville, Dallas, Washington 80 mins), Zakaria, Xhaka, Zuber, Dzemaili (McNair, 82 mins). Unused subs: Mannus, (Mehmedi, 61 mins), Seferovic (Embolo, McLaughlin, Ferguson, Hodson, K Lafferty, 86 mins). Unused subs: Hitz, Lacroix, Paton, Lund, McArdle, Carroll. Elvedi, Lang, Behrami, G Fernandes, Man of the match: George Saville Gavranovic, E Fernandes, Burki. Match rating: 7/10
NORTHERN IRELAND: McGovern, Hughes, Referee: Felix Brych (Germany)
J Evans, McAuley, Brunt, Ward (Jones,
porters. Northern Ireland fancied their chances of a serious upset.
The visitors had more attacking
threat during the first three minutes of last night’s game than they did throughout the first leg. Davis played a dangerous cross