Whenever Northern Ireland are paired with Ukraine, the recollections come flooding back: the hail stones that stopped play, Gareth McAuley’s header, Niall McGinn wheeling away in celebration and the endless renditions of ‘Will Grigg’s on fire’. It is hard to accept that a decade has passed since that day in Lyon at Euro 2016, one of the most famous results in Northern Ireland’s history.
Michael O’Neill, who was in the dugout that day, understands why supporters and reporters keep returning to it. He simply does not intend to join them. “We don’t keep reflecting back on that game and telling the players this is what we aspire to be,” he said. “This team hopefully can write its own history and we have to allow them to do that.”
His reasoning is easy to see in the make-up of the group he has brought to Slovakia, which is hosting the fixture because of the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Only two members of the Euro 2016 squad remain: Josh Magennis and Paddy McNair, who at 31 is already one of the elder statesmen. Steven Davis, the former Northern Ireland captain, is now a key part of O’Neill’s coaching team. The generational shift is stark — current squad members Ceadach O’Neill and Braiden Graham were only eight years old when that match was played, while even established internationals with more than 25 caps, among them Trai Hume, Shea Charles, Isaac Price and Brodie Spencer, were still a few years away from sitting their GCSEs.
O’Neill is prepared to use the old guard as an example, but only as an example. “We may use certain examples of players from those games at Euro 2016 — the likes of Steven Davis, Jonny Evans, Gareth McAuley or Stuart Dallas — as good examples for players to aspire to be,” he said. “But for me, this team is about the future and what lies ahead.”
The youth of the side is not merely a talking point. Northern Ireland’s starting line-up in Georgia had an average age of just 23, and that figure fell to 22.5 against Hungary. The longer-term target is a return to a first major tournament since 2016, with the next European Championship in 2028 in mind. Their opening fixtures back in the second tier of the Nations League have given the project a promising start: Charles struck a 99th-minute winner in Georgia, and the team then showed their character by holding Hungary to a goalless draw at home, even if the players looked visibly tired late on — something explained by the 5,000-mile round trip to Tbilisi. In that opening game, Northern Ireland also succeeded in keeping Paris Saint-Germain winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia quiet.
Ukraine present a different kind of problem. O’Neill believes they do not possess the individual star power of the other sides in League B2, but he has still labelled them favourites for Friday night’s meeting. He pointed to manager Andrea Maldera having made ten changes between Ukraine’s opening 1-0 win in Hungary and their goalless draw with Georgia in the second match.
“Ukraine’s strength is in their collective as a team, rather than what we faced against Georgia with Kvaratskhelia and Hungary with Szoboszlai, who are top European players,” O’Neill said. “I think that Ukraine have many players that have potential to be on that level and go to the big, big clubs in Europe. We haven’t highlighted any one individual, but we’ve looked very closely at how they play, with the ball and without the ball, and I believe their strength is in the collective of the team.”
The fixture is a Uefa Nations League tie, kicking off at 19:45 BST on Friday, 2 October.