MacPHEE IS TAKING HEART FOR A EURO TURNAROUND
AUSTIN MacPHEE believes Northern Ireland can draw on their Euro 2016 experience to provide a stunning World Cup turnaround in Basle this evening.
Trailing 1-0 after the first leg of the play-off against Switzerland, Michael O’Neill’s team have 90 minutes to salvage their dream of participating in Russia next summer.
MacPhee sees parallels between tonight’s task and the challenge met by the team in France last year when they followed up a defeat to Poland by storming back to beat Ukraine 2-0 in the second group fixture in Lyon.
‘We have been here before,’ said MacPhee, who doubles as an assistant to both O’Neill and Craig Levein at Hearts. ‘We lost 1-0 to Poland in Nice, were really poor and we didn’t deserve to win the game.
‘The disappointment of playing so poorly on the world stage gave us loads of resolve. We bounced back against Ukraine and put in one of the best performances in recent history. ‘The level of Ukraine and Switzerland is reasonably similar. It’s not a gulf to a Germany, Portugal or an Italy.’ The Swiss’s lead arrived via a baffling penalty decision at Windsor Park on Thursday. MacPhee admits to being stunned and stung by referee Ovidiu Hategan’s Belfast blunder but, equally, acknowledges that there was little in Northern Ireland’s performance to merit a better result. While he and O’Neill have engaged in a plot to improve the strategy for the second leg, he has been encouraged by the players’ reaction to the setback. ‘Having seen us over four years I know we are going to play better,’ he continued. ‘And I could see the resolve when the boys came into the changing room. ‘Some of the younger players had their heads in their hands and it was interesting to see how some of the senior players responded to that. The message was clear — you don’t come in 1-0 down at half-time in any game and put your head in your hands.
‘There was a very quick process of channelling that reaction into resolve. If the players use this as an additional motivator, that’s a positive.
‘It would be easy to became emotional, but Michael has made it clear that he is not focused on the penalty. From a coaching point of view we have to look at it analytically — we can’t focus on the penalty because we have to play better. They are two separate things.’
O’Neill will make at least one change, with Corry Evans suspended after picking up a booking in the aftermath of the referee’s decision to wrongly penalise him for hand-ball.
MacPhee wouldn’t rule out there being further reshuffling. ‘Michael has made big decisions really well in the past,’ he added. ‘After that Poland game he made five changes, which is probably unheard of at a major tournament, and we won 2-0.
‘We were three hours away from the World Cup, now it’s 90 minutes. Contrast it with the situation Greece find themselves in, 4-1 down to Croatia and the game is done.
‘I always thought if things didn’t go well at Windsor we would still be in the tie. Maybe that wouldn’t be the case had the first game been in Basle.
‘Because Switzerland are at home, the crowd will want them to attack and we can possibly get some space going the other way.
‘I don’t think the once-in-a-lifetime nature of this has been lost on the players. Add in the fact we have been hard done by. I think we will come away from this game knowing we did as much as we can.’