“This is massive, people had written us off, nobody gave us a chance”.
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Baird is determined to repay the Northern Ireland faithful for their continued support.
Michael O’Neill’s side produced the flawless reaction to losing their Group C opener 1-0 to Poland, giving them everything to play for against world champions Germany in next Tuesday’s final group game.
“Whenever we’ve faced teams like that before we could take control of it, take the game by the scruff of the neck and create chances but we didn’t do that against Poland, we pretty much froze on the spot”.
Both sides are promising a more attacking approach than in their opening games, where the Northern Irish went down 1-0 to Poland and Ukraine were dispatched 2-0 by Germany.
Northern Ireland’s Euro 2016 Group C match against Ukraine was briefly suspended due to adverse playing conditions this afternoon.
After a disappointing performance in their 1-0 loss to Poland in their Group C opener on Sunday, manager Michael O’Neill made five changes to his starting XI in Lyon.
“It’s special. It will sink in over the next few days”, he said of the goal.
“One of Poland’s biggest strengths is to play on the counter attack, and in that 2-0 win against Germany, they pushed their fullbacks forward and had a strong attacking threat up front”, Steinebrunner explained. The lads will take confidence from it because we have been written off really.
“We [he and Lewandowski] play each other, we want the best for our countries, and we’ll certainly clash on the pitch at some point”.
Ukraine midfielder Taras Stepanenko said: “It’s clear it was a do-or-die game today and it seems clear we’re out of the tournament”.
When the players returned after the game was halted for two minutes because of the brief hailstorm, Viktor Kovalenko fired a shot just wide from the edge of the penalty area and a second from similar range minutes later.
“So we expect a tough game physically, but we expect a highly technical game as well”.
“Ultimately this is a cup final for us, we need to perform and we need to win otherwise we’ll most likely be out”.
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“Try to get just one point?” “I’m hoping on Thursday we can replay their faith in us with a good performance and a win”, said McGovern. These (fans) are with us no matter what.
