END OF THE WORLD
SWISS MISS AS NORTHERN IRELAND SUFFER PLAY-OFF AGONY
Sunderland’s Paddy McNair was left devastated as Northern Ireland missed out on the World Cup finals despite drawing 0-0 in Switzerland last night.
McNair was brought on as a second-half substitute, but could not help overturn the 1-0 deficit from the first leg of the play-off battle in Belfast.
If it was the end of manager Michael O’Neill’s near six-year tenure, the performance can be highlighted as one that epitomised his Northern Ireland team – gutsy, resolute and energetic.
They were vastly improved from Thursday and nearly forced extra-time too, but former Sunderland loan star Jonny Evans’ stoppagetime header was cleared off the line by Ricardo Rodriguez.
It was hard to escape the fact that it was referee Hategan’s controversial firstleg penalty call that meant O’Neill was conducting a post-match press conference instead of another 30 minutes.
“The cruelty is in the poorness of the decision,” he said.
“We’re missing out on the chance to go to the World Cup. We should still be playing extra-time now, that’s the reality.
“Over the two legs, for us to miss out off the nature of the decision and how it was given, is extremely cruel. At this level, for a group of players that deserve more...we should still be fighting for our place to go to Russia.
“The players are emotional and upset. There were some players in tears, everyone was struggling to hold back their emotions
“Emotions are very high – there’s huge, huge disappointment.
“For some of these players it’s unlikely that the World Cup will ever come round again. What we got from every single one was more than I could ask for.”
While O’Neill labelled it cruel, midfielder Oliver Norwood was more blunt.
“Shafted is the only word to put it,” he said.
“I will think about the penalty decision for years to come as it’s the only goal between the two sides and it’s knocked us out. It’s disappointing that these decisions cost us a place in the World Cup.
“We were angered, upset and disappointed with what happened in Belfast.”
On the game, O’Neill said: “They couldn’t have given any more; what they gave for me, what they gave each other, what they gave for the country was phenomenal.
“The performance was magnificent but ultimately we’ve gone out to a really poor decision in the first leg.
“our performance was fabulous, our reaction to what happened on Thursday night was fabulous.
“We were the better team, I felt, and yes we had to ride our luck at times, we knew that, but right until the 94th minute we were pushing to try and keep our dream alive of going to the World Cup.
“There’s a devastated bunch of players in there but I couldn’t be any prouder of their efforts.
“I’m sure they’ll have some regrets about the performance in the first leg but ultimately if it wasn’t for the penalty we’d have drawn the first leg 0-0 and we’d still be playing extra time now.”