Golfer Rory McIlroy sent a motivational message to the Northern Ireland football team on the eve of their European Championship opener against Poland, reminding them of the country’s proud sporting heritage.
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The White Eagles will be banking on their stars to carry on their domestic form into the Euros, where they must first try to overcome Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland outfit. Northern Ireland are a team, their strengths come from teamwork and team effort.
“Having got the opening game out of the way, we have to do better and see what we can take out of the second game”.
Sunday ” s group C match will pit one of the most attack-minded of the 24 teams at Euro 2016 against a team who have made no bones about their intentions. “It has been a massive achievement for us to be part of this tournament”.
“We found it hard to get a foothold into the game and I think that was partly down to that physicality”.
But apart from one well-worked free-kick where the ball just ran away from Davis in front of goal, they just did not nail them in Nice. In terms of preparation that comes from the players themselves, from the likes of Steven Davis, who plays at this level week in, week out and has been at that level all of his career.
“This team is very experienced and we know that this was just only the first match”, he said.
“We’ll have to play sensibly and recognise that”.
“There was more tension in that game arguably than there will be in the game tomorrow night, because there was so much at stake”, O’Neill said. “Fifteen of them were against Gibraltar”.
“We’ve no doubts whatsoever about Kyle’s fitness”, O’Neill said.
“We qualified in good style, the team has been developing quickly, showing progress”, said Nadalka.
“When you walk out at that stadium in Nice, take a moment to think about our sporting icons, what they achieved and how this is your chance to take your place alongside them”, added McIlroy. There’s other threats. There is Milik, Grosicki, Blaszczykowski on the right, Krychowiak. “He’s like Sweden’s Ibrahimovic, a huge player and a big personality, a talisman”. “In order to win the tournament, we can not be satisfied with just three points tonight. We always knew it would be hard but we weren’t good enough”.
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“But we have three centre-halves [in the squad] that play in the Premier League, they play against top centre forwards every week – [Olivier] Giroud, [Diego] Costa – which is in our favour”.
