Northern Ireland did well to hold off the Poles in the opening 45 minutes.
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Northern Ireland, which had sat deep and absorbed pressure for so long, attempted to throw off the shackles but struggled to create anything of note.
Milik became the youngest ever scorer for Poland at a European Championship at 22 years and 104 days old.
The possession figure was as high as 75% at one stage during a first half in which Milik, after Łukasz Piszczek skipped around Gareth McAuley, fired over and left-winger Bartosz Kapustka, 19, stung the palms of McGovern.
The wave of white shirts did not relent after the restart and the breakthrough Adam Nawalka’s team had been threatening eventually arrived when Milik struck, sweeping Jakub BLaszczykowski cut-back into McGovern’s bottom left-hand corner. Lukasz Fabianski is benefitting from regular football between the sticks at Swansea City, while Grzegorz Krychowiak has been one of the standout holding midfield men in La Liga for the last two seasons.
“We know we are in a hard group with three tough teams, but I am confident we can go and get some positive results”.
Although only a handful of Michael O’Neill’s squad play in England’s Premier League, the former financial analyst has moulded a tough unyielding outfit that is unsafe from set-pieces.
Forced to push up the pitch, Northern Ireland grew into the game once they went behind and produced a few breakaway chances, including one by substitute Conor Washington, who went free on goal only to be charged down by Wojciech Szczesny.
On the other side, the Euro 2016 will the first Euro Championship Cup for the Northern Ireland football team.
The tournament was boosted to 24 teams from 16 four years ago, but as a group victor, Northern Ireland would have qualified even for the smaller event.
He’s undoubtedly Northern Ireland’s big player – so having him back from injury is crucial. The lesson for O’Neill and Co is that, at this level, everyone is unsafe.
Chief executive John Delaney offered his sympathy and also remembered Republic fan James Nolan, who died in Poland following his team at Euro 2012.
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The south of France has been struck by a number of violent incidents over the past few days, with England and Russian Federation fans involved in fights in Marseille in the days before their Group B encounter on Saturday, with more taking place after their 1-1 draw.
