Michael O'Neill admits Northern Ireland devastated at the injustice of their World Cup play-off defeat

An emotional Michael O’Neill said that he and his Northern Ireland were “devastated” by their World Cup play-off defeat to Switzerland this evening, because of the “cruelty” of the decisive penalty decision in the first leg last Thursday.

Northern Ireland drew 0-0 in Basel, meaning that the only goal over two legs was Ricardo Rodriguez’s penalty in Belfast, awarded from a non-existent handball by Corry Evans. The fact that such a bad decision swung this tie still hurts O’Neill, even more than the fact that his team lost and will not be going to Russia next year.

“The first emotion is obviously almost devastation and disappointment,” O’Neill said in his post-match press conference at St Jakob Park. “It would just be disappointment had we lost, but it is devastation because of the nature of how we lost and the goal that decided the tie. It was decided by a really poor decision, and a penalty that should never have been.”

The decision by Romanian referee Ovidiu Hategan to give Switzerland a penalty at Windsor Park could haunt Northern Irish football for years, given everything riding on it. O’Neill was clearly still upset by it when discussing it after this second leg tie, insisting that the result should have been 0-0 over two legs and that extra-time should have been played. “The cruelty is in the poorness of the decision,” he said. “We’re missing out on the chance to go to the World Cup. We should still be playing now, still be playing extra-time now. Yes, Switzerland were the better team in the first leg but they didn’t score. We were the better team tonight. So over two legs, for us to miss out, from the nature of decision and how it was given, is extremely cruel.”

This would have been Northern Ireland’s first World Cup since 1986 and O’Neill admitted that his players were in tears afterwards, given the pain of missing their best chance to reach a World Cup for a generation. “Of course they’re emotional, they’re upset, there were players in tears,” O’Neill said. “It is a huge disappointment, for these players it is unlikely a World Cup is going to come round again. What we got out of them is more than I could ever have asked for, to be honest.”

With Chris Brunt, Aaron Hughes and Gareth McAuley coming to the end of their careers, this is now a crossroads for this Northern Ireland team after years of progress under O’Neill’s management. Asked about his future, he said that no-one should be rushing into any decisions. “As I said to the players themselves, there is no need to make any rash decisions on anything they want to do,” he said. “I know it’s a difficult time, to make decisions about going forward. These players have had long established Northern Ireland careers. For me they’ve got time to make that decision. There is a lot of time for consideration on that.”