'Evans retires as one of NI's all-time greats'

Jonny Evans won 107 caps for his country over an 18-year international career

Bookended by outings against Spain almost 18 years apart, Jonny Evans' Northern Ireland career has ended as it began.

Having confirmed his international retirement on Thursday, across more than a century of caps in between those first and last outings for his country, the 36-year-old Manchester United defender ensured that one of the most memorable debuts in Northern Ireland's history preceded one of the finest careers in the green jersey.

It was Lawrie Sanchez who gave him his first taste as a senior international when Evans was an 18-year-old on loan at Belgian side Royal Antwerp.

Legend has it the manager was only made aware of the young defender in the under-21s after his assistant Terry Gibson's son noticed him in the computer game Championship Manager.

Fresh off a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Iceland at Windsor Park, Sanchez wanted fresh faces for a training game but was so taken by Evans' performance that he included him from the start only days later against a side who in the years to come would win the World Cup and a pair of European Championships.

Going against a forward line consisting of David Villa, Fernando Torres and Raul would have been daunting for any defender - to do so on your international debut, and out of position at left-back, felt a gargantuan task.

And yet, while it was David Healy's hat-trick in the 3-2 win that was destined to be shown time and time again, how Evans saw off the challenge of three of the game's superstars down the Spanish right flank would stay with Sanchez.

"All three of them knew there was this young kid playing his first game and were probably thinking they would be able to get something out of him," Sanchez told BBC Sport NI in 2022.

"But they didn't. Jonny looked as though he had played 100 games for us at left-back."

Evans Northern Ireland career began in incredible circumstances

On the basis of that night, perhaps it should come as no surprise that unflappable has been the word used to describe Evans time and time again across his near two decades at the heart of Northern Ireland's defence.

Relied upon by four different international managers - Evans has been a constant under Lawrie Sanchez, Nigel Worthington, Ian Baraclough and both spells of Michael O'Neill - the former Leicester City and West Bromwich Albion man has provided an injection of Premier League quality to the side during an era when representation in England's top league has dwindled.

And while his top-flight honours mark him out as one his country's most decorated ever players, helping his side to a major finals will rank alongside the Premier Leagues and FA Cups.

Evans, who scored six goals for his country despite a nine-year drought between his first and second, played all four of Northern Ireland's games at Euro 2016, previously citing the 2-0 win over Ukraine in Lyon as the highlight of his international career.

Despite agonising play-off defeats by Switzerland and Slovakia denying them spots at the 2018 World Cup in Russia and Euro 2020, Evans has remained among the side's most consistent performers, especially after the retirement of long-time team-mate Steven Davis last year.

Evans joined Pat Jennings, as well as Steven Davis and Aaron Hughes, as the only men's players to play 100 times for Northern Ireland

Having said he "came to the realisation" of how much it meant to him to represent Northern Ireland as his career progressed, Evans' attitude to international football, even through a period when results faltered at the end of Baraclough's reign and the early days of O'Neill, was praised by his manager as recently as this summer.

No longer with the likes of Davis, Stuart Dallas and Craig Cathcart alongside him, Evans' experience has been vital as a new team sparking optimism for the future has been blooded around him in recent windows.

While the likes of Conor Bradley, Trai Hume and Shea Charles have given Northern Ireland supporters cause to look forward to the future of late, Thursday's announcement provides a reason to look back with fondness on one of the great careers in green and the day a fresh-faced 18-year-old kept some of the world's best at bay.