Northern Ireland are back at Windsor Park for the first time in 315 days on Monday night, with Hungary the visitors for a Uefa Nations League Group B2 fixture.
Michael O’Neill’s side have not played in Belfast since a 1-0 win over Luxembourg, settled by a Jamie Donley penalty — a fixture played 51 days short of a year before Monday’s game. In the interim they have played five times, all of them away from home. That run began with a World Cup play-off defeat by Italy in Bergamo in March and ended with Friday night’s win over Georgia in Tbilisi, a result that stands out given they had won just two of their previous 12 competitive away matches.
Form at Windsor Park, by contrast, has been strong despite the sporadic fixtures. Since losing to Slovenia in October 2023, only Germany have left Belfast with a win, and that was a 1-0 triumph on a night the hosts missed numerous good chances. Seven wins in nine home games is a sharp contrast with the nine matches that preceded that run, when Northern Ireland beat only San Marino and Kosovo, the latter thanks to a 94th-minute winner.
O’Neill said he does not put much stock in such runs of form given how international squads change, but he acknowledged his team are in a good place at Windsor Park. “This is a new team, so they’re not saddled by the performance of previous teams,” he said. “They love playing here at the stadium. You know there was a period where the team of 2016 didn’t enjoy playing at home. Then suddenly they started to win games and they loved playing at home. Teams go through phases and at this moment in time this team is in a really good phase in terms of the home form.”
The return means something to the players too. Midfielder Patrick Kelly has picked up four of his five caps on the road. “I’m buzzing for it,” he said. “Obviously, I made my debut there last year in November time and I haven’t played there since, it’s all been away games. We haven’t been there in a while and I’m really looking forward to it.”
For goalkeeper Pierce Charles, who saved a penalty from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in Georgia, the wait has been longer still. The 22-year-old has not played in Belfast since June 2025 because of injury. “Personally, I’ve not played there in over a year now and I can’t wait to feel the place rocking. I just can’t wait to see the fans and hear how loud it’s going to be,” he said. “I think we thrive off it. It just makes us excited, playing in front of a positive crowd, especially when we’re doing well. They love to get behind us, which we all love, so it just drives us on to do better.”
Monday night is not, however, an average home fixture. Northern Ireland take the field around 73 hours after the final whistle in Georgia, a match that required an almost 5,000-mile trip. O’Neill noted that his side will have travelled further to get to Belfast than the visitors, given that Hungary played Ukraine in Budapest on Friday.
To mitigate the impact of that travel, the Northern Ireland players were kept on UK time throughout the trip despite the three-hour time difference, and flew through the night to arrive back in Belfast on Saturday morning. “The preparation between games is pretty much the same. The difficulty with this game was obviously we had quite a distance to travel — we’ve travelled further than the away team in this situation,” O’Neill said. “But that’s the draw and that’s the nature of how the fixtures came out but this is a good group. I think they’ll be ready to play.”
Northern Ireland against Hungary kicks off at 19:45 BST on Monday, 28 September at Windsor Park.