San Marino 0-2 Northern Ireland: Dion Charles scores twice as NI win on Michael O'Neill's return

Dion Charles scored his archetypal 2 Northern Ireland goals

Michael O'Neill's 2nd spell arsenic manager got disconnected to a winning commencement arsenic Dion Charles gave Northern Ireland a 2-0 distant triumph successful San Marino.

NI got the triumph they were expected to arsenic they began their Euro 2024 bid against the world's lowest-ranked side.

O'Neill's men big Finland astatine Windsor Park connected Sunday.

The Finns mislaid distant to apical seeds Denmark successful Wednesday evening's different Group H encounter, portion Slovenia had earlier opened the radical with a 2-1 distant triumph implicit Kazakhstan

A chorus of 'We emotion you Michael, we do' belted retired from the ever-vocal 1,000-strong Northern Ireland travelling enactment arsenic they welcomed backmost the manager who led them to the Euro 2016 finals during his palmy archetypal tenure that ended abruptly successful 2020 owed to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Having won conscionable 4 times successful 24 competitory matches nether Ian Baraclough since then, San Marino provided inviting opponents for O'Neill's instrumentality arsenic they are present without a azygous triumph successful each of their 161 competitory outings and sitting successful 211th successful the Fifa rankings.

Youngsters Shea Charles and Conor Bradley some delivered hugely mature and awesome performances for Northern Ireland, portion Everton youngster Isaac Price joined Cameron McGeehan successful making their elder planetary debuts successful the 2nd half.

Charles rewards O'Neill with double

Charles' opener arrived successful the 24th infinitesimal and it was a decorativeness applied with the swagger and method of a antheral precocious successful assurance successful beforehand of goal, having scored 18 times for Bolton Wanderers truthful acold this season.

Man City teen Shea Charles, who looked composed passim deputising for injured skipper Steven Davis successful the deep-lying midfield relation - recovered the ever-willing Conor Washington with a good walk into the close transmission and helium delivered an fantabulous first-time debased transverse for his onslaught partner.

Charles had to ticker intimately arsenic the shot bounced earlier arriving astatine him astatine the backmost station earlier controlling the decorativeness superbly to unfastened his relationship for Northern Ireland connected his 14th cap.

Charles headed location his 2nd 10 minutes aft the break, erstwhile again being successful the close spot astatine the close clip to conscionable an fantabulous Jamal Lewis transverse from the near with a close-range header that seemed to wrong-foot Benedettini who got an outstretched manus connected the shot but could not support it out.

In-form striker Charles broke San Marino's absorption with 2 well-taken goals

It led to choruses of 'Dion's connected fire' - a twist connected an aged favourite that galore volition nary uncertainty retrieve from the Euro 2016 finals - and proved definitively it is for an planetary squad to person a striker scoring goals regularly astatine nine level.

Charles' opening extremity was precise timely for the visiting team, who until past had been good connected apical but were frustrated arsenic a fig of set-piece moves failed to travel disconnected portion a fewer players seemed to person problems staying up arsenic they slipped to the ground.

Paddy McNair had the lone important accidental earlier the archetypal extremity came - isolated from a scare from the hosts erstwhile Filippo Berardi went done and forced a prevention from Bailey Peacock-Farrell - but his downward back-post header from a George Saville transverse was good saved by goalkeeper Elia Benedettini.

The nerve-settling effect of taking the pb was intelligibly disposable arsenic O'Neill's men began creating a fig of bully chances, with Saville blazing implicit from a good Bradley transverse and Dion Charles conscionable not capable to agelong acold capable to prod location a beautiful, inviting transverse from his namesake Shea.

However, the champion accidental for Northern Ireland to treble their pb fell to wing-back Jamal Lewis conscionable earlier the interruption but the Newcastle United antheral unsuccessfully attempted to crook Dion Charles' cleanable transverse connected to his near foot, erstwhile helium looked acceptable to sprout with his close successful beforehand of goal.

The 2nd fractional somewhat petered retired during the last fractional hour, though determination was a scare for Northern Ireland erstwhile Nicola Nanni went done and scored for the visitors successful the 67th minute, but the emblem went up for offside erstwhile his changeable recovered the net.