Northern Ireland v USA

Words Mark McIntosh The Sun

‘WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE CAPABLE OF’

Conor McLaughlin already has a winners’ medal in the bag this year and now he’s hoping to top it off with World Cup 2022 qualification.

“That said we did play well against both of them and were really unlucky not to qualify. “We are happy to have Switzerland in our group this time because of what happened in the last World Cup campaign. We were so disappointed when we lost in the play-off to them and everyone knows what happened with the penalty. There’s no doubt it would be great to get one over them this time around.” He said the Northern Ireland players do not really need any extra motivation to try to qualify for the World Cup but admitted the play-off defeat to the Swiss will give the games against them in European Qualifying Group C a bit of an edge. “The loss was narrow and the reward would have been massive. That will give us more motivation,” he insisted. “Everyone thought we had no chance when we qualified for the last Euros but we know what we are capable of and since that Euros we’ve come so close to qualifying for another two major tournaments.

The Sunderland star celebrated winning the Papa John’s EFL Trophy at Wembley before switching his attentions to Northern Ireland’s first triple header of the year. Having played at Euro 2016 and gone agonisingly close to qualifying for two major tournaments since, the ex-Preston and Millwall full-back is hoping it will be third time lucky this time around. The last campaign saw Northern Ireland face European heavyweights Germany and Netherlands in the group stages but this time around there is an added motivation with Switzerland in the mix alongside Italy, Bulgaria and Lithuania. “It’s always going to be a tough group but when you don’t have the likes of Germany and Holland in your group it always gives you a bit of hope you can go on and qualify,” said McLaughlin. “You know there is always going to be one of the big dogs in the group, no matter what, but when we had the Germans and the Dutch it was always going to be an uphill battle.

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