Northern Ireland v Israel

DID YOU KNOW?

Words Marshall Gillespie

Prior to Saturday’s match with Bosnia & Herzegovina Michael O’Neill had used a total of 60 players in his 56 matches in charge. There are still six players in this evening’s squad who were in the manager’s very first starting 11 versus Norway on 29 February 2012. They are Gareth McAuley, Aaron Hughes, Jonny and Corry Evans, Steven Davis and Shane Ferguson.

Northern Ireland have won five of their last six friendly encounters at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park. Since November 2015 they have beaten Latvia (1-0), Slovenia (1-0), Belarus (3-0), New Zealand (1-0) and South Korea (2-1). The only blip was a 3-0 defeat to Croatia in November 2016.

This evening’s encounter with Israel will be Northern Ireland’s 116th friendly international challenge match. Their full record to date is: P W D L F A Home 54 17 15 22 59 82 Away 53 10 17 26 39 93 Neutral 8 0 1 7 3 17 Total 115 27 33 55 101 192

This friendly will be the 10th meeting between Northern Ireland and Israel and the fifth occasion the two countries have played each other in Belfast. Of the previous nine encounters Northern Ireland hold the upper hand with three wins, all in Belfast. Israel’s only success was a 2-0 victory the last time they made the trip to Northern Ireland in March 2013 for a World Cup Qualifer.

When Conor and Ryan McLaughlin were used as substitutes in the 3-0 defeat to Costa Rica back in June they joined Corry and Jonny Evans on the pitch, which meant for the first time ever two sets of brothers played together in a full international match for Northern Ireland.

Our full record against them is: 1968 – Friendly (A) – won 3-2 1976 – Friendly (A) – drew 1-1 1980 – WCQ (A) – drew 0-0 1981 – WCQ (H) – won 1-0 1984 – Friendly (H) – won 3-0 1987 – Friendly (A) – drew 1-1 2009 – Friendly (H) – drew 1-1 2013 – WCQ (H) – lost 0-2 2013 – WCQ (A) – drew 1-1

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