| Venue: Olympic Stadium, Helsinki Date: Friday, 17 November Kick-off: 17:00 BST |
| Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Ulster; live text and report on BBC Sport website; highlights on BBC One NI |
Michael O’Neill cancelled Northern Ireland’s training on Monday as he only had seven players fit enough to take part. It was the first time he had ever done that across over eight years as an international manager.
Anyone looking for a snapshot of a campaign to forget will do well to find a better one.
Time on the training pitch with their players is something international bosses crave so, especially for a man so attentive to detail as O’Neill is renowned for being, it is not a decision he would have taken lightly. Instead, they worked on video analysis.
And yet the injury crisis that has severely hindered Northern Ireland’s dismal Euro 2024 qualifying campaign has got even worse since then.
Having already lost Manchester United defender and stand-in captain Jonny Evans due to an injury sustained last week, O’Neill has since had to deal with the withdrawals of goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell, winger Paul Smyth, midfielder Brad Lyons and full-back Paddy Lyons.
Four of those absentees would almost certainly have started against Finland in Helsinki on Friday night. And that was from a squad named last week without experienced quartet Steven Davis, Stuart Dallas, Corry Evans and Shane Ferguson as well as Conor Bradley and Shayne Lavery. Not to mention the recently-retired Craig Cathcart.
It injected a nervous jeopardy into the normally-routine ‘any fitness concerns?’ question at the pre-match press conference in the bowels of Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium.
“We have to get through tonight,” a somewhat philosophical O’Neill said ahead of their on-pitch training session on Thursday evening. It was not without a little nervous grin.
“Looking through the squad list today of people who have pretty much been part of the campaign it would have been 15 players who are not with us.
“We’ve used well over 30 players in terms of putting them on the pitch and more than that when it comes to naming a squad as well.
“It’s challenging but that’s the nature of the job, there’s nothing really you can do about that.”
What the nature of that job now is, compared to what it was for large spells during his first spell in charge of his country, may well have been brought into sharp focus by the venue of Friday night’s encounter.
The last time O’Neill brought a team to play Finland at the stadium which famously hosted the 1952 Olympic Games, he and his players were celebrating having just qualified for the Euro 2016 finals a few days previously. They lost the match 1-0 but it mattered little as that joyous journey to France had begun.
Contrast that to today. This young and inexperienced Northern Ireland team go into their penultimate Euro 2024 qualifying match having lost six and won two of their previous eight. With both wins coming against San Marino, the world’s lowest-ranked team.
Given the disappointing results and the ongoing injury problems, how does O’Neill manage to be in the required frame of mind to motivate his players?
“I was asked if the glass is half full or half empty with me. If my glass was half empty then I’m in the wrong job,” he explained.
“Of course I have to look at it. The difficulty we have had in this group is results. There have definitely been positives at times for me in the performances.
“I understand the performances will be evaluated on results but with these younger players, they need positivity. You want young players looking forward to coming away and playing for their country, not having reservations or an insecurity or a lack of confidence about doing it.”
And, he revealed, the players help keep the manager upbeat as well as vice-versa.
“This is a brilliant group of players to work with, probably the easiest group of players that I have had in my time as an international manager because they are just so keen to do well.
“They are learning on the job and so what gives me the reason to stay upbeat is the motivation that the players give me because of their application, how they have worked on the training pitch and tried to bring those things forward into the games.”
‘No international games have any less significance’
And what about these two games? After this difficult meeting with Finland, Northern Ireland welcome Denmark to Belfast’s Windsor Park to finish off a campaign their fans will want to forget.
Over 550 members of the Green and White Army are expected to have made the trip and, while qualification hopes were quashed long ago, O’Neill is adamant that those travelling supporters will watch a fully-committed performance.
“You play 10 international games in a year so you cannot neglect any of them, none of them have any less significance,” he added.
“We are in a situation where we have not won a lot of games in this campaign or in the previous campaign, so the important thing is that when we get the opportunity to play, we try to reverse that.
“The basis of any international is to get the maximum out of it because we will end this campaign and not play again until March. The international landscape can look a little bit different for a lot of players, their club situations could look a lot different as well.
“I think they have to value the message that I hammered home to them on Monday when they arrived, that they have to evaluate every experience they have because you never know when it will be taken away from you.”
A message, of course, that had to be delivered indoors at the team hotel rather than on the training pitch.
