Talking points ahead of Northern Ireland’s Nations League opener against Greece

Northern Ireland kick off their new Nations League campaign when Greece visit Windsor Park on Thursday night.

The fixture is the first of a quadruple-header which will also see Ian Baraclough’s side face Cyprus away and at home, either side of a trip to Kosovo.

Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the talking points around Thursday’s match.

Northern Ireland have never had a happy relationship with the Nations League. Their record in the competition makes for miserable reading: played 10, drawn two, lost eight and won none – scoring only six and conceding 18 along the way. They only avoided relegation the first time around as the competition was reformatted, but League C was the inevitable conclusion second time around. But having gone down, Northern Ireland start as top seeds in their group and with hope of finding a way to the European play-offs.

The visit of Gus Poyet’s men will bring back some happy memories for Northern Ireland fans – their last two meetings against the Piratiko were key victories during qualification for Euro 2016, 2-0 in Athens and 3-1 in Belfast. Since then Greece have also missed out on the 2018 World Cup and Euro 2020, with their squad undergoing a rebuild as the 2004 European champions look to work their way back up the rankings. They have never been higher than League C in the Nations League.

There’s a familiar face back in the 28-strong squad as Kyle Lafferty is called up for the first time in almost a year. The 34-year-old is Northern Ireland’s second-highest scorer with 20 goals for his country, but the last of them came in 2016, and he been overlooked in recent windows during a time when he took up a succession of short-term contracts at different clubs around Europe. But after scoring