{"id":403180,"date":"2025-09-06T17:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T17:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/403180\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T17:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T17:25:10","slug":"germany-v-northern-ireland-four-time-world-cup-winners-are-always-under-pressure-says-michael-oneill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/403180\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany v Northern Ireland: Four-time World Cup winners are ‘always’ under pressure says Michael O’Neill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northern Ireland, naturally, do not enter the fixture with anywhere like the same weight of expectation.<\/p>\n

After beginning their own campaign with a 3-1 win over Luxembourg<\/a> on Thursday, O’Neill said that a positive result in Cologne would turn a good trip into a great one.<\/p>\n

Despite the main objective of three points in Luxembourg having already been achieved, the manager rejected the notion that Sunday’s game represented a “free hit” for his side.<\/p>\n

“That’s not a term I would use about any football match to be honest, but I think that it’s an opportunity for us,” O’Neill said.<\/p>\n

“I think, given where we are as a team, playing obviously one of the superpowers of European football, one of the heavyweights, we have everything to gain from the match. We know we’re playing an extremely good side who have had obviously a difficult game on Thursday night, so we would expect a reaction on that side of things.<\/p>\n

“Given where we are as a squad, the age of our squad, the experience of our squad, it’s a great opportunity for us. It’s a game for us to look forward to and enjoy and hopefully take something from.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland, naturally, do not enter the fixture with anywhere like the same weight of expectation. After beginning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-403180","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-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115158523861680935","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403180","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=403180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}