Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
We’ll do it for GAWA
O’neill’s stars dreaming of victory in crunch World Cup play-off
NORTHERN Ireland boss Michael O’neill said his players will “give it everything” to deliver World Cup glory to the Green and White Army.
More than 18,000 supporters are set to generate a wall of noise at Belfast’s Windsor Park tonight for the crunch play-off against Switzerland.
O’neill is dreaming of Russia as Northern Ireland look to qualify for their first World Cup in 32 years.
He said: “I see in the squad an
opportunity that they don’t want to waste but equally they have done everything so far and I believe they will give everything over the next two games to make it a reality.”
O’neill and his squad are standing on the verge of reaching successive major tournaments following their Euro 2016 heroics.
But they must overcome the Swiss with the return tie in Basel on Sunday.
O’neill said: “I think this is very important for the fans. We saw the benefit here in Belfast, and throughout the country, during qualification for the Euros and then at the finals in France.
“You see what it did here to the country, having 10 to 15,000 people at fanzones watching games.
“Those are things we haven’t seen here in Northern Ireland.
“Back in 1982 and ‘86 we didn’t have things like fanzones, so it brought everyone together and it was phenomenal support.
“We want to try and replicate that and the players have done fantastically well to get this far. We are the smallest nation going into the play-offs, and we have everything
to play for.”