{"id":486773,"date":"2025-10-09T22:31:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T22:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/486773\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T22:31:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T22:31:20","slug":"northern-ireland-u21s-live-up-to-billing-and-show-their-class-to-breeze-past-malta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/486773\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland U21s live up to billing and show their class to breeze past Malta"},"content":{"rendered":"

In September, they began their qualification campaign with an encouraging 1-1 draw away to Georgia, the second seeds in the group.<\/p>\n

At The BetMcLean Oval, Wright\u2019s young guns were too strong for Malta in their 2025-27 European Under-21 qualifier, sealing a 2-0 victory.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland are competing with Germany, Greece, Latvia as well as Georgia in Group F.<\/p>\n

Up next is top seeds Germany on Tuesday, also at The BetMcLean Oval (5.30pm), and although that is a tougher assignment, the squad will go into it with confidence and belief.<\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland Under-21 boss Tommy Wright looks on during his side’s victory over Malta<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland were 2-0 ahead at the break and it could have been more.<\/p>\n

Portsmouth\u2019s Makenzie Kirk opened the scoring on seven minutes with a great header following a cross from Glentoran youngster Johnny Russell.<\/p>\n

Kirk and Dundalk\u2019s Eoin Kenny led the attack for the home side and were a handful for the Malta backline.<\/p>\n

Skipper Michael Forbes doubled his side\u2019s lead on 33 minutes with a sublime finish from Liam McStravick\u2019s corner.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Forbes takes the acclaim after making it 2-0 to Northern Ireland Under-21s against Malta<\/p>\n

Malta goalkeeper Hugo Sacco was in inspired form to prevent further damage as Kirk and Kenny both tested his concentration.<\/p>\n

After the hosts had established a two-goal advantage, the onus was on the visitors to hit back, but the Northern Ireland rearguard was rarely tested.<\/p>\n

Sacco saved from Liverpool forward Kieran Morrison and Shea Kearney as Northern Ireland saw the job through comfortably.<\/p>\n

N Ireland U21: McMullan, Barr, Forbes, Fogarty, Russell (Sewell 91), Kearney, Robinson (Sheridan 91), Kelly (Donnelly 81), McStravick (O\u2019Neill 72), Kirk (Morrison 81), Kenny.<\/p>\n

Subs not used: Glenfield, Brown, Barnsley, Ryan, Brannigan.<\/p>\n

Malta U21: Sacco, Cross, Jake Micallef, Xerri, Hili, Grech, Azzopardi (Buhagiar 61), Letherby (Bonanno 82), Vella (Ensell Attard 82), Shaisen Attard, Gatt (Bartolo 76).<\/p>\n

Subs not used: Gambin, Abela, Sargent, De Flavia, Ging.<\/p>\n

Referee: Alessandro Dudic (Switzerland)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In September, they began their qualification campaign with an encouraging 1-1 draw away to Georgia, the second seeds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[28303,8544,1144,8538,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-486773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-glentoran-fc","9":"tag-graham-luney","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115346583818053273","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486773","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=486773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}