A Swede victory is sealed by Forsberg
Should the Norwegians leave Belfast with nothing it would move Northern Ireland to 10 points at the halfway stage of the World Cup campaign.
And O’Neill sees that figure as a magic marker.
“Once you get to double figures suddenly your mindset changes and you start to think about qualification as possibly a more realistic proposition,” he said.
“If you look at us in the previous campaign, we won four of the first five and everyone starts to look forward to it.
“As long as you keep that momentum in the campaign, it’s not that difficult for me to retain the focus for the players because we don’t have a player in our squad that has been to a World Cup.
“I’m sure the experience they had in the summer, at the Euros, they would love to experience again at the biggest tournament of all. I suppose that’s all we need in terms of a motivating factor.”
The challenge posed by Norway, however, appears more difficult than it did a few weeks ago, before the experienced Lars Lagerback took charge.
Lagerback has previously guided Sweden to five successive major tournaments and led I celand t o t he Euro 2016 quarter-finals.
O’Neill concedes that they now represent something of an unknown quantity.
“I would expect to see a lot of British-based players in Lars Lagerback’s team, just in terms of their readiness to play,” O’Neill said.
“We think we have a fair idea of how they’ll play.
“I don’t think the game will be decided because of anything tactical. I think it will be a very British game and decided by who on the day maybe wants it more.
“We have to really make sure that in terms of what we put into the game, it’s everything that we have.
“The tactical side of it will not necessarily be the determining factor in the game.”
O’Neill’s options have been reduced by injuries. Both Corry Evans (groin) and Aaron Hughes (calf) have been ruled out and Josh Magennis is rated “extremely doubtful” because of a hamstring problem.
Then there is the ongoing issue over Kyle Lafferty’s fitness.
Northern Ireland’s talisman has three goals already in this qualification campaign – which is more than the number of starts he has made for his club Norwich.
Despite that, his international boss has no doubt Lafferty can answer his country’s call again.
“His game time has been very, very limited,” O’Neill said.
“His overall fitness is very good – but in terms of match fitness that’s a different thing.
“It will be a factor in terms of the decision I make but the thing about Kyle is however long we play him for, we know we will get something from him. He is still very, very important to us.
“We saw that in the game against San Marino, where he came off the bench and scored twice and we also saw it in the game against Azerbaijan when he scored a very important goal.
“Those are things I just have to decide but whatever we get out of him will be of great benefit to us.” SWEDEN piled the pressure on rivals France and Holland in Europe’s World Cup qualifying Group A with a convincing 4-0 defeat of Belarus in Solna.
But the Swedes had blundering Belarus keeper Andre Gorbunov to thank for at least two of their goals.
After Emil Forsberg had opened the scoring from the penalty spot, with an effort which Gorbunov got his fingers to but could not stop, the keeper let Forsberg’s tame 49th-minute shot trickle through his legs.
He then flapped at a hopeful cross to allow Marcus Berg to head in a third.
In the 77th-minute Isaac Kiese Thelin completed the rout from a pass by Oscar Hiljemark.
Switzerland are the runaway leaders in Group B but had to wait until deep into the second half to break down Latvia’s dogged resistance in Geneva.
The breakthrough finally came in the 66th minute when Josip Drmic headed into the bottom corner from Admir Mehmedi’s cross.
Andorra are the bottom team in the group but earned some pride with a brave goalless draw against Faroe Islands.
Faroes’ Hallur Hansson came closest to breaking the deadlock with a close-range effort in time added on which flew over the bar.
In Group H Bosnia took just four minutes to break bottom team Gibraltar’s resistance.
Vedad Ibisevic fired in right footed but his side had to wait until two minutes before the break for their second.
Hertha Berlin skipper Ibisevic was the man on target again, this time with a close-range header.
Avdija Vrsajevic made it 3-0 seven minutes after half-time and Edin Visca added a fourth just four minutes later.
But any thoughts Bosnia might have had that the floodgates would then open were thwarted by the stubborn visitors.
Gibraltar stuck to their task and denied Bosnia the chance to improve their goal difference on rivals Greece.
In the same group, Cyprus and Estonia battled out a goalless draw which did neither side’s hopes of closing the gap on the top three any good.
Both sides are locked together on four points.