Women’s Euro 2022 team guide No 3: Northern Ireland

This article is part of the Guardian’s Women’s Euro 2022 Experts Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 16 countries who have qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from two countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 6 July.

Northern Ireland are without doubt the team that ripped up the script in qualifying for the Women’s Euro 2022 finals, their first major tournament in the women’s game. Pulled out of pot four in the draw, they lost only two games out of eight – both against the former world, European and Olympic champions and eventual group winners Norway, who scored six without reply in the two games.

The key results were two draws against the second seeds Wales, in particular the 2-2 in Newport when Ashley Hutton marked her 100th cap with a late headed equaliser. Coupled with a 0-0 draw in Belfast in the final game before a Covid-19 enforced delay, that put Northern Ireland ahead of Wales on head-to-head record.

Four straight wins against Belarus – who had come out of pot three – and the Faroe Islands in the second half of the campaign clinched the runners-up spot in the group. Kenny Shiels’s side finished with an identical record to Wales, but the two away goals in Newport saw them come out on top.

In the playoffs, their qualification dream came true after fantastic home and away victories over Ukraine – 2-1 in Kovalivka, and 2-0 in Belfast – and the biggest disappointment was that Covid-19 restrictions at the time meantfans could not attend the historic occasion when the team clinched their place in the finals. They will more than make up for that at the finals, with a large travelling support expected for their three matches in Southampton.

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