Northern Ireland go down to defeat on tournament debut at Euro 2022

Northern Ireland were outclassed on their major tournament debut as Norway romped to a comprehensive 4-1 Euro 2022 victory in Southampton.

First-half finishes from Julie Blakstad and Frida Maanum, plus a Caroline Graham Hansen penalty, put the two-time European champions on course for a routine success to dampen a historic occasion for their opponents.

Defender Julie Nelson – Northern Ireland’s most-capped female player – gave the competition’s lowest-ranked nation brief hope of an unlikely comeback by heading in a landmark goal just after the interval.

But Guro Reiten’s free-kick sealed a routine success for Martin Sjogren’s side to move them level on three points with hosts England at the top of Group A.

A difficult evening for Kenny Shiels’ underdogs was compounded by forward Simone Magill – who has just moved from Everton to Aston Villa – leaving the field in tears late on due to injury.

Northern Ireland manager Kenny Shiels felt there were positives in defeat.

After conceding twice in the opening 13 minutes they were 3-0 down at half-time but Nelson’s historic goal gave them something to cheer.

“You are not happy when you get beaten 4-1 but there are extenuating circumstances,” said Shiels.

“They were nervous for the first 25-30 minutes and you can see Hansen and (Ada) Hegerberg, how good they are they.

“We were against the two best strikers in the world and we drew the last hour of the game. If you take out the penalty kick, we actually won it.

“The scoreline was hard to take, I thought we deserved better than that but we are three years into this programme and it will take 10 years to take us into the top 20 in Europe.

“We have created a monster because we have grown too quickly and are playing against teams of