Northern Ireland v Czech Republic

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GOOD
EVENING
Following on from Friday’s win in San Marino,
Michael’s team can take a significant stride
towards a play-off place tonight (and whisper it
quietly… automatic qualification is still a possibility).
There are some parallels we can see between
this qualification campaign and the last one,
particularly at this stage of the competition.
Game seven last time was a tricky away fixture
against the supposed minnows of the Faroe
Islands, followed by game eight at home to a major
rival in Hungary.
Substitute San Marino for the Faroes and Czech
Republic for Hungary and here we are again!
We've safely negotiated the first part of the test.
Let's hope we are not waiting on a 93rd minute
equaliser tonight though!
Seriously, the prize at the end of this campaign is
such a significant one for Northern Ireland - only 13
out of 55 UEFA countries (plus Russia as hosts) will
qualify for next year's FIFA World Cup finals so we
should not underestimate how big an achievement
this would be for a country our size.
It's been a long summer since Stuart Dallas made
the plane fly home faster from Azerbaijan in June
with his 92nd minute goal in Baku but we haven't
been entirely without football in that time.
We've had record numbers at the various Hughes
Insurance summer camps around the country
Welcome to the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park for
tonight's vital FIFA World Cup qualifier against Czech Republic.
where children learn to love the game in the care of
our dedicated coaching staff.
As well as that we hosted the UEFA Women's
Under-19 Championship finals last month in
Ballymena, Belfast, Lurgan and Portadown.
It was a tournament to remember with more than
18,000 spectators in total at the games, a record
crowd in Northern Ireland for a women's game with
4,289 here at the National Football Stadium for our
opening game against Spain, and more than 3,000
at the final to see Spain lift the trophy.
No-one who was present at Mourneview Park will
forget seeing Louise McDaniel score the equaliser
against Scotland which gave us our first point at a
women's finals tournament.
Alfie Wylie and his squad did us proud and the
organisation of the tournament itself from Sara
Booth, Leanne McCready and countless other staff
and volunteers was top class.
We are missing the tournament vibe already but the
good news is that we get to do it all again in 2020,
this time with the UEFA Men’s U19 finals.
Enjoy the game tonight and let's hope for a good
result!
Patrick Nelson
Chief Executive
Irish Football Association
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