Northern Ireland v Italy (15/11/2021)

GOOD EVENING Welcome to the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park for our final senior men’s international fixture of the year and of the FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifying campaign.

Whilst we can no longer qualify for the finals in Qatar next year, there is still a huge amount to play for in Belfast this evening in front of what is expected to be a sellout crowd. We welcome our opponents Italy, the recently crowned European champions, and given their 1-1 draw on Friday against Switzerland the automatic qualification slot for the finals is still to be decided. Depending on the results here and in the Switzerland v Bulgaria game in Lucerne, either Italy or Switzerland will have their World Cup passes stamped tonight with the other team falling into the play-offs. And let’s not forget that we need a better result than Bulgaria this evening to maintain our own third place finish in the group. If you were here for the Lithuania match on Friday you would have enjoyed a solid performance and a first home competitive win in more than two years. The football was as good as we have seen in a while, and only the referee knows why he chalked off the second and third potential goals in a fast-paced first half. The unlucky Josh Magennis was fairly unobtrusive to our (possibly slightly biased!) eyes as Ali McCann’s shot f lashed past the Lithuanian goalkeeper and it was Josh again who was adjudged to have made too much contact with a defender before he headed the ball into

the net just before half-time. But , as Under-21s manager John Schofield told me just after the final whistle, a ‘W’ is a ‘W’ in the record books and no one can take that away. So as we close this campaign, let’s hope for another good performance and result against the European champions. Whilst we can’t be at the finals next year, we can still inf luence who will be. I’m not sure there are many sides in Europe who would want to come to a packed National Football Stadium at Windsor Park when they need a result and it will certainly be a hard fought contest tonight . When the final whistle is blown later on our thoughts will turn to the senior women’s national team, who play away and home against North Macedonia later this month in their quest to reach the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 tournament and we wish them good luck in both matches. And make a note in your diaries of 16 December, which is the date we will learn our UEFA Nations League Group C opponents for next year. Enjoy the game tonight .

PATRICK NELSON CHIEF EXECUT IVE IRISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIAT ION

IRISHFA.COM

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