Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
O’NEILL WARY OF LOW BLOW
NORTHERN Ireland boss Michael O’Neill is hoping to avoid a Low blow in today’s Euro 2020 qualifying draw in Dublin.
With Germany lurking in Pot Two following their recent Nations League relegation, a group of death is a possible outcome at Mansion House.
A perilous match-up with Joachim Low’s Die Mannschaft and a Pot
One big hitter would leave the Green and White
Army facing an uphill task to reach back-to-back Euro finals.
O’Neill warned: “There are some very strong teams in Pot Two and everyone will obviously want to avoid Germany.
“Having played them so much in recent times, it would be one we’d want to avoid again.
“But you have other big nations in Pot Two as well – Russia and some of the Scandinavian nations with Denmark and Sweden in there.”
Northern Ireland suffered two defeats to the Germans in the last World Cup qualification campaign and lost 1-0 to Low’s men in Paris at
Euro 2016.
With the likes of France, Spain and Belgium amongst the top seeds – not to mention England – Poland may represent the most favourable draw possible from Pot One.
O’Neill said: “We’re going to have to play a really good team from Pot One when you look at the teams in there – Croatia, France, Italy.
“Poland is maybe the team you’d look at as potentially one of the weaker ones, but you’ve also got the teams that are still in the Nations League who will go into the groups of five.”
The four Nations League finalists – England, Portugal, Netherlands and Switzerland – will be allocated to four of the five qualifying groups of five nations.
The other five qualifying groups will consist of six teams, with the top two from all 10 groups making the 2020 finals which will be held across 12 host nations.
In an added twist, only two of the 12 host nations – including the Republic, Scotland and England – can be drawn in the same qualifying pool.
O’Neill said: “I think that works in the favour of the host countries and hopefully we don’t suffer a little bit because of that.”
While Northern Ireland lost all of their Nations League games, O’Neill took positives from the team’s displays.
He said: “I think what the Nations League did was show we are more than capable of holding our own at that level against that level of opposition.”