Northern Ireland 2-0 Belarus: Transition continues to gather pace ahead of big 2025
One sign of how far this young team has come from a month ago was their second-half performance at home against Belarus.
Away against Hungary, Northern Ireland started well in the first half but squandered many chances, but fell into a frustrating stalemate in the second half and lost momentum.
However at Windsor Park they stormed out of the box in the second half after a frustrating first quarter, with Daniel Ballard scoring five minutes after half-time and Dion Charles scoring. Charles scored from a penalty kick.
O’Neill was delighted they did not let their frustrations boil over as they saw a comfortable win see them clinch the group title in the box office.
“You could feel it creeping in, we controlled the game but we didn’t maximize it, but in the second half when you scored the game changed and I thought we handled it well,” he continued.
“In the second half, we started really well from the start with how we pressed and won the ball back and we let them know we were going to overwhelm them with physical pressure.”
Now another step for this improving young side will be an away win in the Nations League, something they have not been able to do so far this season but they have a chance to rectify that with the arrival of Luxembourg on Monday .
“We want to try and win games and we haven’t won away from home yet so this game is important and it shows we can win away from home.”
