{"id":13154,"date":"2026-04-16T19:12:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=13154"},"modified":"2026-04-16T19:12:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:12:58","slug":"france-v-northern-ireland-michael-oneills-team-to-face-two-time-world-champions-in-lille-friendly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=13154","title":{"rendered":"France v Northern Ireland: Michael O’Neill’s team to face two-time world champions in Lille friendly"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Northern Ireland will face two-time world champions France in a friendly in the lead-up to the latter’s World Cup campaign.<\/b><\/p>\n

The game will take place on Monday, 8 June (20:10 BST) at Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille. <\/p>\n

Michael O’Neill’s side failed to reach the World Cup finals after losing the play-off semi-final against Italy on 26 March. <\/p>\n

Having drawn 1-1 with fellow semi-final losers Wales in a Cardiff friendly five days later, Northern Ireland will test themselves against the world’s top-ranked team. <\/p>\n

It will be Northern Ireland’s first fixture in France since their memorable Euro 2016 campaign. Northern Ireland’s second June friendly has not yet been confirmed.<\/p>\n

The sides last met in an August 1999 friendly in Belfast with France winning 1-0. <\/p>\n

“This is exactly the level of challenge we want. France are one of the top sides in world football so it’s a great test for our players,” said Irish FA technical director Aaron Hughes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Northern Ireland will face two-time world champions France in a friendly in the lead-up to the latter’s World Cup campaign. The game will take place on Monday, 8 June (20:10 BST) at Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille. Michael O’Neill’s side failed to reach the World Cup finals after losing the play-off semi-final against Italy on 26<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}