![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/d9e34436-261a-49be-9f0f-d8061eab1a5d.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe 32-year-old is now excited to see what this new look panel can achieve in 2025 as the World Cup qualifiers swing into action.<\/p>\n
Michael O\u2019Neill\u2019s side kick off their Group A campaign with a testing double header in Luxembourg and Germany.<\/p>\n
Thursday night\u2019s qualifier in Luxembourg is followed by a trip to group favourites Germany on Sunday, with Slovakia also on the horizon.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a number of uncapped players in the squad and it\u2019s a been a steep learning curve for the young gems hoping to make it to a major tournament.<\/p>\n
The 2026 World Cup will mark 40 years since Northern Ireland last played in football\u2019s biggest tournament.<\/p>\n
Saville may be in the autumn of his career, but his young comrades are giving him a new lease of life.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
George Saville knows all about the danger Germany can pose<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t mind being the experienced player in the group,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s part and parcel of football, obviously. I love being with this group of lads and these boys. We\u2019ve got a great group here and every time we come away we have a bit of a banter about age but genuinely, we\u2019re all just getting on so well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll do my part, whatever that may be. You talk about experience, but these lads have now got some experience in international football.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were saying it two, three years ago, a young squad, and then we had a Nations League campaign together.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now we\u2019re together, ready for the World Cup qualifiers. So we\u2019ve been together a while now and we\u2019re in a good place. We\u2019re just genuinely excited to get this campaign started.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a few years of a transitional period where some of the senior lads were coming to an end and now some of the younger lads are coming through.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, some young lads have done really well at club level, which has pushed them into the Premier League.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrai (Hume), (Daniel) Ballard, Conor (Bradley) are in the top flight and that all helps. We\u2019ve had a few difficult years, which has been obvious.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then we had a great Nations League campaign, which was brilliant. And we\u2019ve had a couple of years where we\u2019ve tried to mould a squad together and get some stability. So now I feel like we are ready for that next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Luxembourg opener brings them to the lowest-ranked side in the group and back to a ground where they threw away a two-goal lead to draw in November\u2019s Nations League meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had good prep. We\u2019re familiar with what threat they pose and where they can hurt us, it\u2019s good to know about them,\u201d said Saville who made his Northern Ireland debut in 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t get complacent but it\u2019s a big game and exciting. It\u2019s the start of a new campaign and it\u2019s something we\u2019ve all been looking to for a couple of months now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t recall a big atmosphere there. Obviously we heard our fans a lot, which was good. It wasn\u2019t hostile or anything like that, nothing that stands out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say there was complacency that last time, but it is a different scenario this time around.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a clean slate and you must hit the ground running. I think we played really well that night. I think we deserved our two-goal lead. And then if I remember rightly, there was a goal out of nothing and it gave them some momentum in the last 10-15 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the way football can go \u2014 2-0 is a scary scoreline, so I don\u2019t think we were complacent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for the majority of that game, we played really well and played good football. Now it\u2019s a fresh start, a new campaign and important to go and get the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first-place finisher in each of the 12 groups will automatically secure a spot at the Finals, which will take place in USA, Canada and Mexico in the summer of 2026.<\/p>\n
Teams that finish in second spot will progress to the Play-Off round.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Germany in the group and one qualifying automatic spot, it\u2019s difficult,\u201d said Saville who came through the ranks at Chelsea.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need to dress up. So the games before and after those two ties are really important.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a massive game for us, but also a massive opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be amazing to reach the finals. Obviously, we all want to achieve the same thing and we all need to be together to achieve it.<\/p>\n
\nI can still play a lot of minutes and a lot of games<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cIt would be really special but obviously, one step at a time and one game at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The experienced midfielder left Millwall for Luton Town in June.<\/p>\n
He had spent the past four seasons playing for the Lions in the second tier, appearing in 45 of their 46 Championship games as they narrowly missed the play-offs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith everything that was put in front of me, it just felt like the best option for me,\u201d said Saville who also had time with Brentford, Wolves and Middlesbrough.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, there was a number of factors, but the main one was I want to go and achieve something.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate speaking about it, but it\u2019s such a big thing in football with this age thing. I mean, this is nothing against you guys, but the first thing you ask me is about my age and it\u2019s like, I\u2019m 32. But because football has gone so young and it\u2019s got like that now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can still play a lot of minutes and a lot of games so for me to go and achieve something at Luton and hopefully get a promotion was something that I always wanted to do. So it just seemed like the right opportunity and the right thing to do for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve had a difficult couple of years. It\u2019s a transitional period, I think we\u2019re going through that now, but it\u2019s a little bit quicker at club level because it\u2019s every day instead of meeting up once every few months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we\u2019ve started the season well and we\u2019re starting to find our feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t played well in certain games, but we\u2019ve managed to win and we\u2019ve played well in others. So we\u2019re starting to come together nicely and it\u2019s an exciting season for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 32-year-old is now excited to see what this new look panel can achieve in 2025 as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[8544,1144,8538,8542,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-395716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-graham-luney","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","11":"tag-south-belfast-sport","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115142846420662243","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395716","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=395716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}