Michael O’Neill loving northern exposure with leading lights

A few Euro2016 coaches opted to skip Paris this week but for Michael O’Neill the invitation to Uefa’s latest pre-tournament seminar was a seen as a welcome signal that he and his team are considered to have earned their place at the game’s top table just now.

“I really enjoy coming to these types of events,” said the 46-year-old former Shamrock Rovers manager as he prepared to head for home again: “Seeing some of the great coaches of the world here and you’re in a seminar with them . . . you’re on the same playing field as these guys and that’s very, very exciting to be honest.

“I spent a few minutes with Roy Hodgson earlier, talking about their preparation and what they are doing and I think it is very similar to our own and it gives you a bit of assurance, because Roy has a lot of managerial experience with England and Switzerland and has a lot of tournament experience. We are doing similar things, from talking to him, which gives us belief we are moving along the right lines.”

Worked wonders

O’Neill has worked wonders with

Northern Ireland

. The team may have been fortunate to be drawn in a group with Greece just as the 2004 European Champions were imploding but his side were still regarded as outsiders to qualify from a group that also included Romania, Finland and Hungary, never mind to actually win it.

After his success with Rovers, he is clearly proud of this latest achievement but heads to France this summer determined that he and his players can still do more.

“This is a massive opportunity for the players, and for me as a coach,” he says. “People sat up and took notice in qualification – we won our group – but this is a chance when we go to the finals for people to take notice of us again. That has to be our objective.

“We have to try and get to the last 16 of the tournament and none of the smaller countries will be any different, the likes of Iceland who finished second in their group, Albania, so if you have come through that process, you want to give a good account of yourself, and that means getting out of your group.”

Iceland, you might think, can be considered even longer shots to pull it off given the country’s tiny population but O’Neill sees himself as being at a disadvantage even when compared to Lars Lagerbäck given the number of players they are actually choosing from.

‘Tight group’

“You look at our team. The Hungary game – 13 of the 14 players we used were born in Northern Ireland. We haven’t opened our boundaries to bring people in and international football is becoming more like that but you can ignore what is under your nose at times.

“But we have a really tight band of players, we have about 40 players in the whole of the UK playing professionally, which is not a huge number. Iceland, for example, have 100 players playing professionally throughout Europe which is a lot more than us. We have a very tight group of players and you can see they enjoy spending time together and that will hopefully carry us forward.”

It has, under his guidance, certainly got them a fair distance so far and his reward is a new, soon to be signed, four-year contract that brings with it a greatly improved salary and recognition, in the form of compensation clauses that recognise he may receive an offer too good to turn down from a club across the water.

Higher bar

He might also, he hints, be seen as a little less of a success if the forthcoming World Cup campaign, with its higher bar for qualification, does not meet the expectations that he has helped to generate for the team.

“Countries our size have to work off a four-year cycle,” he insists, “which is from a European championship to a European championship because of the qualification process. And obviously if, within that period, we can have a great World Cup qualifying campaign then great.

“When I took the job, the Northern Ireland team was at a particularly low point. We had just come off four straight defeats, had finished in fifth position, so it wasn’t as if we were going to turn that around and qualify.

“So you need that time to prepare, bed players in. There has been quite a gradual change in our squad and it took four years to get that change, for players to find their feet when they come in.”

Now, he says: “I aim to enjoy the tournament and this is an opportunity for the players to enjoy it as well and once you get to that round of 16 you can really start to enjoy the tournament.”