Michael O'Neill: Northern Ireland feeling positive ahead of World Cup qualifiers

Isaac Price fired O'Neill's side in front after 36 minutes and later made a key goal-line clearance as Northern Ireland won a match in which they finished with 10 men for the first time since the famous victory over Spain in 1982.
It was perhaps not the match O'Neill had envisaged going into the night as Northern Ireland spent the vast majority of the final half-an-hour defending following Spencer's dismissal, but the win felt more significant given it came in the face of adversity.
Morning, GAWA 💚🤍
Thank you to all 18,021 of you that made it another special night under the lights 👏🏻 #GAWA pic.twitter.com/pqwvuNiX8E
— Northern Ireland (@NorthernIreland) June 11, 2025
O'Neill will take the positives from that as he turns attention to September's qualifiers away to Luxembourg and Germany.
'We approach it in a good place and we approach it with optimism,' O'Neill said of the qualifying campaign. 'I think there's a belief in there that, yes, we will be able to go and take points at this level. We look forward to it.'
O'Neill's squad remains both young and in large parts inexperienced. Twelve of the 25-man squad for Tuesday's game were 21 or under, and more than half remain in single figures for the number of caps they have.
Having been drawn alongside Germany, Slovakia and Luxembourg in Group A, Northern Ireland's realistic target is second place and a play-off spot, but O'Neill's optimism extends well beyond the next six games.
'I know the team will continue to progress beyond the World Cup campaign,' he said. 'It's just natural that the team will continue to progress. The more they play international football, the better they'll get at it.
'That's all they need – they need more and more exposure, they need more minutes under their belts. Will the world Cup campaign come too soon for this group? I don't know. The proof will be in the games.'
As had been expected ahead of the fixture, Saturday's 2-1 defeat to Denmark in Copenhagen showed where Northern Ireland need to improve out of possession. Spencer's red card turned Tuesday's friendly into a similar exercise for much of the second half.
When asked what his main takeaways from the week were, O'Neill said: 'I think we're going to go into games where we're going to come under a lot of pressure, teams that will come and press us.
'We have to be better than what we've shown in both Copenhagen and then here in terms of how we deal with that. But the other side of our team is our ability to play on the counter-attack, our ability to run without the ball, our desire in our shape and structure.
'We've a lot of things, when we look at the two games, where we'll find a lot of positives. But we're always looking for it to get better. This is still very early in the progression of this team.'

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It also seemed written in the stars. When he was offered the post, MacPhee's son Dino, who was once on the books at both Hibs and Hearts, had just accepted a place at the University of Lisbon, where he will start studying business and entrepreneurship in the coming academic year. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad MacPhee couldn't say yes to Martinez quickly enough. It helped knowing that the majority of the Portuguese squad, including Ronaldo while in his second spell at Manchester United, had already felt the impact of Villa's set-piece proficiency, as have many of Portugal's England-based players. It's hard not to be slightly wowed by MacPhee's trajectory. Eleven years ago he had just joined up with Northern Ireland, having met Michael O'Neill at an Aberdeen game. He wasn't yet known as a set-piece coach per se but when 11 of the 16 goals Northern Ireland scored en route to qualifying for Euro 2016 were from set-pieces, it was clear something was changing in football. 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Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Former Scotland set piece coach Austin MacPhee with captain Andy Robertson during the match against Switzerland at Euro 2024. (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group) | SNS Group / SFA Switching from Scotland MacPhee, who played football in Romania, Japan and the United States, is not finding it strange switching from Scotland, where his heart clearly lies as a former Tartan Army member who travelled to support the team at France 98 in a Renault 5. 'I have been seven years with Northern Ireland as well,' he says. 'I think you become connected with a group of people with a common identity and a common goal. Of course, it is different. I am not Portuguese. But I think you can care more but you don't necessarily try any harder is the best way I can describe it. "I tried as hard as I could for Northern Ireland, I tried my best. I tried to do the same with Scotland. 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