Northern Ireland v Azerbaijan Offical Match Programme

GOOD EVENING

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We last faced our friends from Baku in the World Cup 2014 qualifying campaign and only picked up SRI TSMRX JVSQ E TSWWMFPI WM\ (EZMH ,IEP] WGSVIH LMW XL ERH ƤREP MRXIVREXMSREP KSEP MR XLI &IPJEWX leg in November 2012 with a 96th minute free-kick to equalise). Michael and the squad will, of course, want to do much better this time. This game comes at an important time in the campaign with both sides having started well, particularly Azerbaijan who sit in second place at the moment with seven points. However, as I’m sure everyone reading this programme knows, a win for Northern Ireland tonight will take us into second place over the Christmas period and that’s what we will be looking to achieve. Last month we formally opened the National Football Stadium and what a night it was. FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Dutch legend Marco Van Basten were with us for the opening, as were the First and Deputy First Ministers, Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness. The attendance of 18,234 was the biggest here for some 28 years and it will be matched again tonight; all single match tickets for the Azerbaijan game were sold less than an hour after being made available. Sometimes people worry that the atmosphere is lost in new or redeveloped stadia, but it was very clear that this is an issue we will not have to worry about here. Supporters on all four sides of XLI KVSYRH [IVI MR ƤRI ZSMGI EPP RMKLX EX XLI 7ER Marino match.

Obviously the key matter on the night of the stadium opening was the game itself and it turned out to be E VIPE\IH [MR MR XLI IRH [LMGL [EW NYWX [LEX [I needed. The new stadium itself has already picked up a couple of awards (as have we at the Irish Football Association recently in respect of our marketing and communications campaigns) and I will touch on these more in my programme notes for the Croatia KEQI RI\X [IIO Finally for tonight I would like to say thank you and well done to everyone who was involved in the Women’s International Cup which we staged in Northern Ireland last month as a precursor to the 9)*% ;9 ƤREPW [I [MPP LSPH RI\X ]IEV England (who carried off the trophy), France and the USA were our opponents, none of whom rank less XLER ƤJXL MR XLI [SVPH MR [SQIRŭW JSSXFEPP ;LMPI [I GSYPH RSX QEXGL XLIQ SR XLI ƤIPH SYV XIEQ TYX MR E series of solid performances which will hold them in KSSH WXIEH JSV RI\X ]IEVŭW XSYVREQIRX *SV XLI ƤREP QEXGL SJ XLI XSYVREQIRX 2SVXLIVR Ireland v USA, we saw a crowd of well over a thousand which is tremendous for an under-age game and indicates the latent interest is there. 3JJ XLI ƤIPH XLI WXEJJ ERH ZSPYRXIIV XIEQ PIH F] XSYVREQIRX HMVIGXSV 7EVE &SSXL HMH ER I\GIPPIRX NSF and we look forward to more of the same in 2017. Enjoy the game tonight!.

Patrick Nelson 'LMIJ )\IGYXMZI -VMWL *SSXFEPP %WWSGMEXMSR

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