Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill says that Saturday’s friendly against Denmark is about exposing his youth squad to a high level opposition before the start of the World Cup qualifier in September.
Northern Ireland faced Danes at 18:00 BST in Copenhagen and then hosted Iceland at Windsor Park on Tuesday.
O’Neel’s side has lost only three of its last 13 internationals in recent years and has received promotion in League B in the Nations League, but NI Boss knows that the possibility of facing Denmark represents a step in the classroom.
Northern Ireland will face Germany, Slovakia and Luxembourg in its World Cup qualifying group in the autumn.
“Denmark is a hard team, a pot one team,” ahead of the double-header highlighted O’Neel after guiding his squad through a training camp in Marbela.
“We open to Luxembourg in September and then we are far away for Germany, so it is about exposure to exposure to the exposure for players, international football levels, and pursue the exposure that we faced in the nation league, which we are coming to the World Cup.”
O’Neel’s allegations were lost 1–0 in qualifying in Euro 2024 in June 2023, but five months later avenged with a 2–0 win over Danes in Belfast.
Denmark head coach Brian Reimer took over the team in October last year and the team won only one of their last six matches.
“We are away from home, Ons will be on them. They have a new coach that is only four games. It will be something they will adopt, a slightly different style of the game – quite aggressive that they want to suppress the game, so we have to deal with it,” O’Neill said.
“When we beat them at home, we scored two great goals on the counter-hurdles and we have to play again on that basis.
“This is a test. It is a very young team. We have 50% squads which are 21 and less and some players who are slightly older than that, who are still starting on their international journey.”