Euro 2016 special: Northern Ireland
“We didn’t think it was possible,” says Jonny Evans. Now Gareth Mcauley, Chris Baird and history-making manager Michael O’neill unveil their Euros blueprint
What has been your over-riding emotion in the build-up to the tournament? There’s obviously excitement, but also a bit of nervousness and fear. But that’s good, because it means you’re in the right frame of mind to prepare. You can’t allow this wave of positivity to detract from the main objective: making sure we perform and give ourselves as much chance as possible to progress from the group.
You’ll face Poland, Ukraine and Germany in Group C. What’s your view of the draw? It is a tough one. When I look at the other groups, there are one or two we’d probably have opted to be in rather than the one we got. But we just have to deal with that, and I believe we have played teams of the standard of Poland and Ukraine in qualifying.
Is getting out of that group a realistic possibility for Northern Ireland? Four points, possibly even three, could be enough to get us through. Poland and Ukraine present us with a better opportunity to get those points than Germany – you can’t argue with that. Poland are a very strong team but we don’t think it’s impossible to get something from that game, and it’s the same with Ukraine.
Will Northern Ireland thrive in the role of underdogs at Euro 2016? We’ve raised expectations, but the main thing is to continue to be competitive. We are in a situation that none of us – not me as coach, nor any of our players – have ever been in before. This tournament is uncharted territory, and I hope that will work in our favour. There will be an enthusiasm and a freshness about it all. Some of the players with the bigger nations play in these tournaments every two years, after playing massive games for their clubs right up until the end of May. You sometimes see those bigger teams suffer a bit, which probably comes down to mental fatigue as much as anything else. For us, I think we will have a freshness. And, as I’ve said to the players, the expectation that will come is a good thing, because for too long we’ve played without any. We want to make sure we go there and give a good account of ourselves and try and find a way out of the group. Are even you surprised at how far you have managed to take Northern Ireland in such a short space of time? When I took on the job in 2012, the draw for the World Cup 2014 qualifiers had already been made, the fixtures had already been decided and the friendlies had already been organised. It wasn’t an ideal situation for me, in all honesty. The players had just come off a difficult campaign [the Euro 2012 qualifiers, when Northern Ireland took nine points from their 10 games and finished above only the Faroe Islands in Group C], we had to track down some new blood and we had to do it quickly. Even when Euro 2016 qualifying came around, I didn’t think we were in that great a shape. The one thing we clung on to was the option of the third-place spot, which obviously offered us an additional opportunity to reach the finals. As things turned out, we far exceeded that by winning our group.
Can we expect to see Northern Ireland in more major tournaments, moving forward? When you’re a smaller football nation there are always going to be peaks and troughs, and getting yourself out of those troughs is always going to be your biggest challenge. This group have achieved something huge already, and although we’re not going to qualify continuously for tournaments, what we want is for our younger players to feed off the achievements of this team.