NI will not be ‘starstruck’ versus reeling Germany

Germany vs. Northern Ireland: Fifa World Cup qualifier

Date: Sunday, September 7th, 2019 Kick-off: 19:45 BST

Northern Ireland has recently faced Germany as the only footballing superpower of its kind.

Since winning the four-time World Cup in 1996, when Germany’s star striker Jurgen Klinsmann remarked afterwards that it felt like visiting goalkeeper Tommy Wright had smacked planks across his goal in Nuremburg, they have played the four-time winners since a 1-1 draw.

They have lost nine times.

Yet it’s unusual for the hosts of Sunday to enter the game under such pressure during that 29-year period. Since reaching their Nations League quarter-final against Italy in the first leg in March, Julian Nagelsmann’s side has never won.

Although the shock defeat by Slovakia on Thursday night to begin their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign was rarely seen as a crisis despite the losses to France and Portugal.

Jamie Reid, a striker for Northern Ireland, said, “If anything, it’ll make the game much harder.” With a 3-1 win over Luxembourg, Reid’s team made their first start in Group A significantly better.

In contrast, Northern Ireland arrive in Cologne with confidence following a run of just four defeats in their previous 16 games, not just from their victory in Luxembourg, which represented their first competitive away victory since March 2023.

Their first qualifying event in almost two years came with a victory at the Stade de Luxembourg. In order to get his players used to facing the best in Europe, manager Michael O’Neill decided to hold away friendlies against nations like Spain, Sweden, and Denmark.

The former pair’s 5-1 scoreline was used to defeat all three of those games, but midfielder Shea Charles thinks the side’s wider form gives reason to believe in a test of this nature.

The Southampton midfielder who scored his first international goal on Thursday scored his first goal for the club, said, “It’s in our mind] those results when we go away to the big nations.

It’s very exciting, she said. They have been defeated, so they are going into the match with a strong desire to win. We need to step up and put up a strong fight against them.

O’Neill has targeted elite rivals in friendlies, but Premier League exposure has also helped his squad gain ground.

Conor Bradley has returned to Liverpool from a loan spell at Bolton Wanderers and has won the league title at Anfield since the end of the Euro 2024 qualifying campaign.

Trai Hume and Dan Ballard, both of whom missed Sunday’s game due to injury, were promoted to the top of the premier league last year, while Justin Devenny made his Crystal Palace debut.

Devenny, who scored the winning spot kick in the Community Shield penalty shoot-out against Liverpool last month, believes that playing his club football at such a high level will make him more able to face the toughest challenges in international football.

He stated, “Week in week out, I’m playing against the best players in the world.”

Not all of the players in Northern Ireland are so familiar with the level of opposition that was anticipated on Sunday. O’Neill’s panel has been hit by injuries, and the selection of three players for the third-tier of England this year against Luxembourg on Thursday revealed three players making their money in the third-tier.

Reid of Stevenage was one of those players, but the 31-year-old claims there won’t be any sense of “starstruck” if he leads the line in Cologne against the anticipated centre-back duo of Antonio Rudiger from Real Madrid and Jonathan Tah from Bayern Munich.

“I played some good games for Spain and Scotland for Northern Ireland.” He claimed that this was yet another difficult test.

We can go into it with conviction, and it’s one we’ll look forward to. We won’t experience star gazing or anything similar.

We all have a job to do, and we’re all going to work toward it.

However, there is no denying that Germany’s recent problems have altered how it looked prior to the December draw.

A surprise result “must occur” in the group, Charles continued, “and the shock in Slovakia makes things” exciting.”

However, in terms of the table and the possibility of a backlash on Sunday, Northern Ireland would undoubtedly have preferred a victory from Germany.

They can, of course, add to their hosts’ recent woes on Sunday and, in O’Neill’s words, make a good trip into a great one.

The manager said, “Germany was going to be tough enough, but now they are going to be heavily criticized in the media.”