Exposing players to ‘higher level’ key for NI

Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium Date: Saturday, June 7 Kick-off: 18:00 BST

Before the start of the World Cup qualifiers in September, Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill claims that the friendly against Denmark will give his young squad a higher level of opposition.

Denmark takes on Northern Ireland at 18:00 BST in Copenhagen, followed by a 19:45 kickoff against Iceland at Windsor Park on Tuesday.

O’Neill’s side have recently lost just three of their previous 13 international matches and advanced to League B of the Nations League, but the NI boss is aware that facing Denmark will give them a chance to improve their standing.

In their autumn qualifying group for World Cup, Northern Ireland will face Germany, Slovakia, and Luxembourg.

After leading his squad through a training camp in Marbella ahead of the double-header, O’Neill declared, “Denmark are a tough team, a pot one team.”

We play in Luxembourg in September, and then we play in Germany, so it’s about getting more players and getting exposed to international football, and getting more exposure from the Nations League and what we’ll be facing in the World Cup.

Five months later, O’Neill’s men won 2-0 over the Danes in Belfast after losing 1-0 to Denmark in Euro 2024 qualifying in June 2023.

Brian Riemer, the team’s head coach, took over the reins in October of last year, but they have only won one of their six matches so far.

The onus will be on them because we are away from home. Only four games have passed since they hired a new coach. We will have to adapt to that because that is a slightly different style of play and they will be quite aggressive with how they want to press the game, O’Neill said.

“We scored two excellent goals on the counterattack when we beat them at home, and we’ll need to play again based on that.”

O’Neill thinks his players should approach high-quality opponents with confidence before playing.

They will observe the game at its highest level of international football, but we must act confidently that we can achieve a result there.

With six games where there isn’t much room for error, especially with a team like Germany, who typically dominate their group, that’s what we need to instill in the group of players.

We must convey to players that those are the games from which we can profit.

O’Neill explained that some squad members’ June games were the “most challenging” on the international calendar, with some coming to an end of May and others coming much more recently.

The players were all in different stages during the opening two days, but we are pleased with the work they’ve done.

We were unable to resign from the initial squad, which means that, aside from one or two minor niggles, we are in good shape.