Michael O’Neill: I’d love France at Euro 2016 but not England

Certainty regarding Northern Ireland’s return to a major tournament is not reflected in their manager’s future. Contrary to the usual scenario, speculation regarding Michael O’Neill is for wholly positive reasons.

The 46-year-old's historic guiding of Northern Ireland to Euro 2016 from qualifying pot five triggered jubilation and, inevitably, admiring glances from club chairmen. The fact that Lawrie Sanchez earned a ticket to the Premier League at Fulham without very little international reward with Northern Ireland should indicate the esteem in which O'Neill is held.

“You are everyone’s best friend,” O’Neill says of a red-hot telephone line, primarily due to agents. “It doesn’t affect me. I know what I am and who I am, where I want to go. I will be courteous to people but some of it makes me laugh. That’s the nature of the game. I love football, I love the game, but it is the most shallow industry you can work in.

‘Sense of achievement’

“People keep asking me on a personal level how I feel; this is probably something several years from now I will look back on. The sense of achievement hasn’t resonated with me fully yet. It’s more a case of: ‘That’s the first part of the job done, let’s start to prepare for the second.’”

O’Neill will cherish his role in the draw on Saturday. “Playing France in the opening game would be a special experience,” he says. “I suppose you would look to avoid Italy from pot two and probably an England game as well, simply because the attention around that could overshadow everything else.”

O’Neill is in that fortunate position of being able to control his own destiny. The former Brechin and Shamrock Rovers manager will lead Northern Ireland in France and is likely to sign a four-year contract before then. If that term expires without an approach for his services, O’Neill will not be frustrated.

“I would like to think the talks could progress quickly but equally I have to recognise if I did go into club football, the challenge of what that would be,” he adds. “It would be a different challenge for me. The most important thing for me is the focus of the finals, what lies ahead [of that] is to be confirmed, I suppose.

“It [a club move] is something that, if it comes my way, I would consider, but it’s not something I think like: ‘I desperately have to get to England now.’ It doesn’t consume me.

“International management is really difficult. I don’t think club management prepares you for this role but the skills you develop as an international manager will help you in a club situation. Your man-management skills have to be very finely tuned, more so than at club level because you have less power.

“You can’t sell a right-back and sign another one. We have had to find a right-back at Fleetwood Town and turn him into an international player. If you were a club manager, you would probably instantly sell him and buy someone better. So the skill-set and what I have learned over four years will certainly help, whatever the next challenge of my career is. The Northern Ireland job in itself is tough. We are in a hugely difficult 2018 World Cup group – it is going to be difficult to progress.”

If they don’t emerge from a section that will also include Germany, the Czech Republic and Norway? O’Neill raises a smile. “I know. You could be old news by then – that’s football. Everyone always says to get out at the highest point. What will happen between now and France will be interesting. Lots of jobs will come up in England.

“The dilemma is simply if someone wanted me and approached the IFA between now and the finals. You can never look too far ahead, there are lots of things that aren’t in my control. You approach these things if they arise.

Modern-day role

O’Neill holds firm views on the modern-day role of the manager. “In club football you manage the team,” he explains. “You are just trying to win games and manage the team. Which is fundamentally why, in football, so many clubs are f**ked. You don’t get the benefit of managing the club.

“I look at the short-termism in football now and this strange theory that another manager will do remarkably different. Who is making the decisions [above the manager]? How much do the people making the decisions, realistically, know? That’s the nature of the game now in England.” Guardian Service