It is a cool, Parisian morning when Michael O’Neill makes his way into the Pullman Hotel, the nearby presence of the Eiffel Tower providing a picture-postcard backdrop to the scene. Wearing an open-necked shirt and navy suit, his path through the foyer is blocked by several people who stop and request his time. Politely he gives it and in those brief seconds when he communicates with strangers, you catch a glimpse through the window of his personality. Possessing a natural warmth, he effortlessly engages in small-talk about everything from the weather to Northern Ireland’s prospects in Euro 2016. Then, recognising he is due into a meeting, he quietly but firmly moves on.
Minutes later, O’Neill enters a room where the great and good of football management have gathered. Martin O’Neill is to his left, Roy Hodgson and Didier Deschamps to his right. Yet even in the company of better-known faces, O’Neill retains a distinguished look. His face is lined, his hair is slightly thinner than when we last saw him play; yet in comparison his peers, there is a youthful energy to his features. “I’m enjoying this,” he says of the workshop that has brought the 24 managers of the Euro 2016 finalists to Paris. “And I aim to enjoy the tournament as well. We will only do that if we give a good account of ourselves.”
A good account, namely, is to make it through the pool stages and into the last 16. “That has to be the objective because this is a massive opportunity not only for the players, but for me as a coach. People sat up and took notice in qualification – we won our group – but this is a chance for people to take notice of us again.” O’Neill’s team will face Germany, Poland and Ukraine in group C.
“What we do have is a very tight group of players who enjoy spending time together
He was 18 when people first noticed him, a languid playmaker who found the net for Newcastle United and then found work in the Scottish Premier Division and English lower leagues, forging a reputation for being a decent player who never quite lived up to his early promise.
The perception of O’Neill, the manager, is different, though. Having first exceeded expectations when he was in charge of Shamrock Rovers – bringing them to two league titles and the group stages of the Europa League — he has moved his career onto a completely different level with Northern Ireland.
Advertisement
It helped, of course, that he was located in a qualifying group containing Greece, easily the weakest of the top seeded countries, who were never in the running for qualification.
Yet even so, O’Neill’s achievement in guiding Northern Ireland to the finals of a leading tournament for the first time in 30 years, was simply breathtaking.
“A number of factors explain why we did well but one of the key reasons was the qualification process because that provided everyone with more hope. The worst thing is to think your qualification chances have disappeared after two or three games and sometimes that happens in a group. It genuinely does.
“We look back at the last [World Cup] campaign. We weren’t going to qualify out of that group, because it was so tough, but we opened up with three draws from four games and that was it. We were left behind and that is why the Euros is better for the smaller countries because there is a genuine belief that you still have something to play for.
“The process achieved what UEFA hoped it would. It allowed smaller countries to go into their last two games thinking, ‘well, if we can get four points from these set of matches, we are still in with a shout’. Now we are at the big show – us, Iceland, Albania. It’s great.”
Advertisement
Certainly the people of Belfast think so. With an unprecedented demand for tickets, France is preparing itself for the gentlest invasion it has known in its history with over 20,000 Ulstermen expected to travel, a far cry from the dark days of the 1990s, when O’Neill was playing in a team that failed to connect with the public. If those years were a reminder of sectarianism at its worst, then the subsequent decades have highlighted the hope that sport can bring to a troubled society.
“You look at our team. For the Hungary game, 13 of the 14 players we used were born in Northern Ireland. We haven’t opened our boundaries to bring people in even though that sort of thing is happening increasingly regularly in international football.
“We have a really tight band of players, about 40 in the whole of the UK playing professionally, which is not a huge number. Iceland, for example, have 100 players playing professionally throughout Europe. What we do have is a very tight group of players who enjoy spending time together.”
It doesn’t help that one of those key players – Chris Brunt – will miss the finals, after it emerged this week that injury will prevent him from travelling. “Devastating news,” O’Neill said. “Especially as he has given so much to the shirt for so long. But unfortunately that’s just the nature of football.”
Even fairytales don’t always have happy endings.