O'Neill: I'd love a good old British cup clash
GETTY IMAGES
?T IS a month since Northern Ireland were given a raucous send-off at the Titanic exhibition centre in Belfast, an impressive venue with a history that did not necessarily augur well for such a happy and prosperous passage overseas.
So far the journey has taken Michael O’Neill and his players to Austria, Slovakia and various stopoffs in France. This evening in Paris, there will be more than a little hint of home as they attempt to secure an unlikely place in the quarterfinals of Euro 2016.
Wales versus Northern Ireland may not be a classic in the eyes of most other countries here. But it has the makings of a what O’Neill expects to be ‘a good old-fashioned British game’ at the Parc des Princes.
Two teams made up largely of English-based players, with the obvious exception of Real Madrid star Gareth Bale; an English referee in Martin Atkinson; two managers who are desperate to stay in Europe at a time when all the talk at home is about getting out.
Wales boss Chris Coleman has more quality at his disposal, which is why it suits O’Neill to turn this into a typical cup tie, the like of which has not been seen so far in this tournament.
‘Wales are predominantly picking a team from the Premier League,’ he admitted.
‘We’re picking a mix from the Premier League and the Championship. But our players in the Championship certainly believe they are good enough to play in the Premier League
‘Whether it’s like a Premier League team going to a Championship team, that’s irrelevant. The main importance is that we make it a cup-tie.
‘We have an English referee and we want everything that’s good about the British game. It will have a bit of a cup-tie feel and Wales go in as favourites. We’re happy with that position, it suits us, and we’re in a good position to qualify.’
While Coleman has called on his players to take the emotion out of the occasion, O’Neill wants to do exactly the opposite.
‘No, I want my team to play with loads of emotion,’ he added. ‘I want them to fully understand the significance of the game.’
Northern Ireland will be encouraged by the fact that a typically resolute defensive effort restricted Germany to one goal at the same venue four days ago, even though it required the help of the woodwork and the performance of his life from Hamilton goalkeeper Michael McGovern.
They also did a good job of keeping Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski quiet in the opening loss to Poland, and will try to do the same to Bale.
‘We’ll be ready to deal with Gareth Bale,’ said O’Neill. ‘We know his running power, his pace and his goal threat but we know how to deal with those things.
‘When you get to this stage of the tournament you have to deal with special players.’
O’Neill was in good spirits yesterday despite the huge prize at stake, a place in the quarter-finals against Belgium or Hungary next Friday.
Brexit was not an issue at the moment, he told one Polish reporter, because it would have no impact on team selection or formation.
Equally, his record in derby games of this kind is not important. ‘When I was manager at Brechin, the Brechin-Montrose derby atmosphere was electric with those 500 people!’ he joked.
But there is no doubt just how much he wants to win the biggest game of his career.
He said: ‘The message for the team is simple: play the game of your life. We have wrung every drop we can out of this experience and we want more.’