Neither side has accomplished much since their glory days. Perhaps the current crop were ready to be uttered in the same breath? Still, scans allowed Lafferty to return to training the following day.
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Northern Ireland take on Poland on Sunday before facing Ukraine on June 16 and Germany on June 21.
“The team has realised that we won’t win as individuals but we can achieve something as 23 players in a squad”, said Krychowiak, who also starred in Sevilla’s Europa League title win last month.
“We set up to get a clean sheet and nick something, then they scored and we had to come out”, said defender McAuley.
But while Northern Ireland did improve as an attacking force after they switched to a 4-4-2 shape to try and get back on terms, they rarely threatened to equalise after mustering just two attempts on goal.
“Poland started very brightly”.
“We found it hard to get a foothold and I think that was partly down to their physicality”. Everything around the tournament has been top class.
Poland v Northern Ireland kicks off at 5pm tonight at the Allianz Riviera stadium in Nice. Northern Ireland end up going in for the break with the scores still level.
You could not question the effort and application of our players and the thousands of travelling fans, and everyone back home, should be very proud of them.
The playmaker had been Poland’s brightest spark in the first-half and his cool finish from Blaszczykowski’s cross was no more than his performance deserved.
Still fancy a Northern Ireland win?
Forwards Conor Washington and Jamie Ward were introduced by O’Neill in the hope that they could find the answer. The coach said: “I don’t think we ever envisaged coming into this game thinking we’d be disgraced but there’s a bit of disappointment in the dressing room that we didn’t do more with the ball”. You can only go for it if you have the ball.
The 1-0 victory in Group C was the Poles’ first win in seven games at the finals. We take from today’s game that we had a chance of getting a result right until the final whistle. We will analyse the game and see where we could be better.
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Poland’s defence hadn’t really been tested until Washington raced through on goal in the 73rd minute, but Szczesny was quick to cut out the danger with a courageous block. Lewandowski will warm up for that confrontation with a match against Northern Ireland and its backline made of five players.
