Northern Ireland v Hungary (29/03/2022)

GOOD EVENING In men’s international football terms 2022 will be a year with a strange and unusual rhythm. With the FIFA World Cup being played in December for the first time, the usual international windows are still in place but are being used in a different way.

For example, it is unusual to have two friendly fixtures in the March window, but this is what we have this year. On Friday evening we travelled to play in the impressive new Stade de Luxembourg and beat the hosts by a 3-1 scoreline, partly at least putting to bed the memory of our 3-2 defeat nine years ago at the old Stade Josy Barthel . Tonight we welcome Hungary to the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park for our second March friendly. They were last here in September 2015 when a 94th minute Kyle Lafferty equaliser kept us on the road to France. The game was also memorable (in the wrong way) for Chris Baird, who was given two yellow cards (and then the inevitable red) for committing two fouls in the same passage of play. This was a decision by the Turkish referee Cüneyt Çakir which had us all scratching our heads, but in the end he was right of course! Staying with the theme of this being a different type of year in the international football world, we have a competitive quadruple header coming up in June with four UEFA Nations League games on the calendar. We will be home to Greece, away to Kosovo, and both home and away against our final opponent ,

Cyprus or Estonia, who are playing this evening to see which country stays in Nations League C. This will , of course, be a challenge for us as June games are out of season for our players, however with a UEFA Euro 2024 play-off place up for grabs - even before we play the main qualifiers - these games are very significant . We are delighted that we will have a full house in the stadium this evening to support Bara’s squad. And speaking of tickets, if you haven’t got yours yet for the senior women’s FIFA World Cup qualifier against England here on 12 April then you might need to move fast! We are now up to 14,000 tickets sold for this match, and it will be a record home crowd for our senior women’s team as they continue to plan for UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 in England this summer. Enjoy the game tonight , and we will hopefully see you back here for the England match next month.

PATRICK NELSON CHIEF EXECUT IVE IRISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIAT ION

IRISHFA.COM

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