Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill said his side’s late arrival in Luxembourg for Thursday’s 2026 World Cup qualifier was a “little bit frustrating” but he remains happy with their match preparation.
The squad assembled in Liverpool on Sunday, using the facilities of the Premier League champions for a training base before travelling the day before the first game of their qualifying campaign.
Due to fly from Liverpool to Luxembourg on Wednesday afternoon, an Irish Football Association spokesman said their “charter aircraft was late repositioning from Gatwick due to adverse weather conditions in the south of England, followed by some issues with ground handling”.
The squad eventually arrived at their team hotel shortly after 20:00 BST, less than 24 hours before kick-off at the Stade de Luxembourg.
O’Neill’s side have previously travelled two days before a game, but the manager said the benefit of their training sessions in Liverpool “far outweighed” an earlier arrival in Luxembourg.
“Really the players were fine, it’s just a bit frustrating because when you get all your work done and you leave the hotel, you want to try and get here as soon as possible and get in the hotel, but the fact is we’ve had three great days training at Liverpool.
“We did our matchday session that we would normally do here, we did it at Liverpool [on Wednesday morning] and we’ll have one session [on Thursday] morning just to re-run things and touch on a few things like set-pieces again and we’ll be ready to play.”