Northern Eire supervisor Michael O’Neill says Saturday’s pleasant towards Denmark is about exposing his younger squad to a better degree of opposition earlier than the beginning of the World Cup qualifiers in September.
Northern Eire face the Danes in Copenhagen at 18:00 BST after which host Iceland at Windsor Park on Tuesday with a 19:45 kick-off.
O’Neill’s facet have misplaced simply three of their previous 13 internationals lately and gained promotion to League B within the Nations League however the NI boss is aware of the prospect of dealing with Denmark represents a step up at school.
Northern Eire will face Germany, Slovakia and Luxembourg of their World Cup qualifying group within the autumn.
“Denmark are a troublesome group, a Pot One group,” highlighted O’Neill after guiding his squad by means of a coaching camp in Marbella forward of the double-header.
“We open in September away to Luxembourg after which we’re away to Germany, so it is about publicity for the gamers, publicity to the degrees of worldwide soccer, and stepping up that publicity from what we confronted within the Nations League, to what we will face coming into the World Cup.”
O’Neill’s costs misplaced 1-0 to Denmark in Euro 2024 qualifying in June 2023 however exacted revenge with a 2-0 win over the Danes in Belfast 5 months later.
Denmark head coach Brian Riemer took up the reins of the group in October final 12 months and the group have received solely considered one of their previous six matches.
“We’re away from residence, the onus can be on them. They’ve a brand new coach who is just 4 video games in. That’ll be one thing they are going to be adapting to, a barely completely different type of play – fairly aggressive with how they need to press the sport, so now we have to cope with that,” stated O’Neill.
“Once we beat them at residence we scored two nice targets on the counter-attack and we’ll should play once more on that foundation.
“It is a check. It is a very younger squad. Now we have 50% of the squad which are 21 and underneath and a number of the gamers who’re a bit older than which are simply beginning out on their worldwide journey as properly.”
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