The 2-0 win over Ukraine, thanks to goals from Gareth McAuley and Niall McGinn, was their first ever in the Euro finals and means they could now reach the knockout stages.
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Northern Ireland kept their Euro 2016 dream alive courtesy of a 2-0 victory over Ukraine this afternoon.
A SECOND NORTHERN Irish soccer fan has died at the European Championships in France.
“Nobody has given us a chance”.
“We didn’t take the game to our opponents, we weren’t unsafe enough and we have to improve that or we won’t get far”, said defender and man-of-the-match Jerome Boateng.
Poland’s Arkadiusz Milik had the best chance of the latest clash when he bundled the ball wide from point-blank range early in the second-half.
Despite stopping the match temporarily, the weather subsided quickly enough to bring the players back onto the pitch and resume the match after a few minutes. The team performance was pleasing, the reaction from getting beaten against Poland. “When you get a performance that is just pure commitment, pure heart, you can’t ask for anything more”.
“We had a point to prove to ourselves”.
“It has been a long time”, McAuley said. We thought we let ourselves down (against Poland), with the intensity we played at.
“We have a realistic prize at the end of the game against Germany”.
‘It’s obviously a huge disappointment and everyone wants to play every single game, but if we’re going to do anything in this tournament we all have to stick together. “The lads will take confidence from it, because we’d been written off”.
He praised manager Michael O’Neill for having the guts to make five changes, and also the attitude of the players who were left out as a result.
“We’re happy with the point”.
Seleznyov failed to take a similar opportunity for Ukraine – aiming his header straight at McGovern from an inswinging set-piece – just prior to the game being suspended due to the weather conditions. We needed players who would give us that outlet and the players who came in certainly did that.
“And we’ve seen today with the work rate from the boys, we put them under pressure from minute one and didn’t relent from there”. Furthermore, as a unit, Ukraine are more balanced and structured.
Aberdeen winger McGinn, 28, came off the bench to secure the three points deep in stoppage time.
Northern Ireland grew in confidence through the first half and with McAuley’s goal registered its first goal in an worldwide competition since the 1986 World Cup.
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Nawalka believes Lewandowski’s presence is opening up more opportunities for strike partner Arkadiusz Milik.
