NI U21 players 'should embrace England challenge'

Wright's Northern Ireland Under-21 squad have won two of their six qualifiers to date

Northern Ireland Under-21 manager Tommy Wright says his players "should embrace the challenge" of facing European champions England in their Uefa Euro 2025 U21 qualifier at Ballymena Showgrounds on Friday night.

The game, which will be broadcast live on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app, will pit Wright's team against an England side which has Ben Futcher in temporary charge in the absence of regular manager Lee Carsley, who is in a similar role with the England senior team for their Nations League openers.

England sit second in Group F on 18 points, with six wins and a defeat from their opening seven qualifiers as Ukraine top the table following their six opening wins.

Northern Ireland's qualification hopes have ended as they are fourth in the group with two wins and four defeats from their six outings.

"They [the players] are excited about it and who wouldn’t be?" Wright told BBC Sport NI.

"We were looking through their squad and we reckoned it was worth about three quarters of a billion, with a lot of Premier League players and the Bundesliga and the top end of the Championship in England.

"It’s a great challenge for us and one we are looking forward to, one the players should embrace and really go out and enjoy."

'We will give everything we can'

Wright's Under-21s lost 3-0 to England when the sides met at Goodison Park in November and have since lost 3-0 to Czechia in a friendly and defeated Serbia 2-1 away in a Euro qualifier.

"We did really well [against England], it was 40 minutes before they broke us down," reflected the former St Johnstone manager.

"Since then we’ve put in two good performances, even though we lost to Czechia, and an excellent performance against Serbia.

"That was a game we weren’t expected to win, we lost the friendly game a few days before it, but we changed the system, played a back three, and the players responded really well."

Wright believes his Northern Ireland side has what it takes to cause their opponents problems in Friday's meeting even though England have already earned 9-1 and 7-0 wins over Serbia and Luxembourg in Group F.

"We’ve got players who can play and hurt the opposition. We do understand that we are playing against the best team in Europe but we’re going to make sure we go out and give everything we can.

“Ballymena is a slightly smaller pitch, a slightly narrower pitch, so that is one of the reasons why we wanted to go there."