![\"Tyrhys](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/UF4QN3GXLJPSJDFDBKO5ICXA24.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Thursday’s](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OOTEUNMVSFJZ3FX443WTOYRNU4.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nO\u2019Neill professed himself to be delighted with the players he has available and insists Northern Ireland, Luxembourg and Slovakia are not playing for second place behind Germany.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you can\u2019t take that attitude into the tournament\u201d, said the former Stoke City boss.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously they are strong favourites to win the group, as they would be in any group they play in, let\u2019s be honest.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say \u2018oh they\u2019re not the Germany team that we played in the past\u2019, but the Germany team we played in the past were the World Champions, so it\u2019s a high bar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got some younger players, they\u2019re maybe going through a transitional phase but their players still play at the top level of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn international football, the challenge is always who you get from Pot One.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re honest, would we rather not get Germany? Of course.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were other countries in Pot One that we possibly would have preferred to have but the draw is the draw.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to maximise what we take in the games against Luxembourg and Slovakia and make sure we are as competitive as possible against Germany and hopefully take something from those games as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball has a way of throwing up surprises. We recognise the fixtures and we know we\u2019ll need to take points.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you play the top nations, the Pot One nations \u2013 particularly away from home \u2013 anything you can take in those games is a real bonus.<\/p>\n
\u201cEqually, when we play here at home we have to believe that we\u2019re capable of winning all our home games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can win your three home games it can put you in a strong position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northern Ireland will take something of a step into the unknown against Luxembourg as the national team has been embroiled in controversy this year.<\/p>\n
Striker Gerson Rodrigues received an 18-month suspended sentence and a EUR1,500 fine after being convicted for domestic abuse last year and lost an appeal in April of this year.<\/p>\n
Seasoned manager Luc Holtz was lambasted for continuing to pick the 30-year-old Portuguese and last month the Luxembourg Football Federation announced his contract would not be renewed at the end of the year.<\/p>\n
However, Holtz resigned eleven days ago to become manager of German third tier club SV Waldhof Mannheim and successor Jeff Strasser was unveiled on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Not ideal for the new manager but O\u2019Neill feels times have changed and it\u2019s no longer as simple as seeing games against Luxembourg as \u2018gimmes\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s not. Luxembourg have developed a lot in recent years, they\u2019ve got a number of players who play at a good level, in good leagues in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s a tough game. We had a tough game out there in November, although we put ourselves in a really strong position and allowed them back into the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve bad memories of getting beaten by Luxembourg and I\u2019ve memories of beating them as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe beat them here in friendlies and we beat them here in the Nations League.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeams change and they change over time. Luxembourg have changed their coach for example.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuc Holtz had been there for fifteen years and they have a new coach now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just happened in the last few days so we don\u2019t know how the new coach will play.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuxembourg are like ourselves, they don\u2019t have the depth of players to have a huge change of personnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have to look at the new coach and what he\u2019s done at his clubs and what he\u2019ll bring to the international arena, so there\u2019s a little bit of the unknown there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael O\u2019Neill believes Northern Ireland have everything to play for in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers as Germany…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,94,71884,99646,1824,74744,127311,34323,10031],"class_list":{"0":"post-362893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-friendly","12":"tag-friendly-match","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-n-ireland","15":"tag-northern-ireland-v-switzerland-international-friendly-nation","16":"tag-pa2025","17":"tag-soccer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115068571728665061","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}