Northern Ireland out to show Germany why they belong

Northern Ireland v Germany, Parc des Princes, 5.0pm (RTÉ2, BBC1)

There comes a time on the road for any emerging team or manager when a signpost confirms just how far has already been travelled. For Northern Ireland and Michael O’Neill, tonight in Paris facing world champions Germany is one such marker.

Just under five years ago Northern Ireland finished fifth in a group of six qualifying for Euro 2012. They won two of 10 matches. It was a 13th consecutive failure to qualify for a major tournament.

Nigel Worthington had become the fifth Northern Ireland manager since Billy Bingham to discover that what Bingham did in the 1980s was no mean feat.

Two months after Worthington departed, in came O'Neill. It might have a caused a stir within Ireland that he was moving from Shamrock Rovers but, beyond our shores, there was rather less notice taken – as O'Neill found out when he flew to Euro 2012.

O'Neill went to Poland and Ukraine in an unofficial capacity. He wanted to see forthcoming World Cup qualifying opponents Portugal and Russia in the flesh, but he also wanted to get a taste of a tournament.

“Me and a friend hired a car in Poland,” he explained. “We flew from Belfast to Krakow – Easyjet – and that was a great base for us.

“But we signed an insurance waiver at the airport to say we wouldn’t take the car out of Poland, so when we got to the border in Ukraine we couldn’t go across.

Brainwave

“We were a bit stuck. ‘What do we do?’ That border’s not like Newry today – there were checkpoints and all that. Loads. We’d a brainwave when we saw this bus with Germany fans. It’s about 50-60 kms to Lviv and we approached this wee bus. My mate tried to explain what we were doing and who I was, so that we could get on.

“They didn’t know who I was, I was only in the job about six months, so when we got on they started to google me and ‘Northern Ireland manager’ to see who I was.”

They know now. O'Neill and his team have moved from the fringes of recognition to the centre of attention – he was asked questions by reporters from Hong Kong, Norway and France, as well as Ireland, in the press conference at the Parc des Princes last night.

O’Neill was even asked by a Brazilian reporter what advice he would have for Brazil.

He and Steven Davis had their official accreditation on. They are a part of Euro 2016. But back in Euro 2012, O'Neill said: "I didn't have accreditation or anything – I'd not gone through the IFA – we just wanted to go on our own steam.

“We’d our own tickets, I wanted to go to the tournament and sample it, see what it’s about.

“Now everywhere we go we’ve got police security. But that’s nice. We belong in this tournament. I sampled that one, now we’re in this one and we’re part of it.”

Should the Irish progress in third place, there is a permutation that sees them meet hosts France in Lyon on Sunday.

After beating Ukraine there last Thursday, O’Neill joked that he would treat Lyon “as a home game”.

O'Neill downplayed the five changes he made for the Ukraine game. Josh Magennis may have called O'Neill a "magician" for his tactical switch, but it's not how the Ballymena man sees the world. It's not about tricks. "It wasn't radical," he said.

“We’d to win a game and we’d to put a team together that could do that.

“The decisions on leaving players out had no bearing on it. The question I’d to ask was: ‘What do we need?’

“The big thing I felt we needed was to get some running power into the team.”

They will need that against Germany. As the Republic of Ireland had taken four points off Germany in qualifying, O'Neill, Michael, was asked if he'd spoken to O'Neill, Martin.

“Some months ago,” Michael replied. “He told me to get as many people behind the ball as possible.”

Inevitably, that prompts another line about a bus.