FAROES DIARY:In my head I targeted the Northern Ireland and Estonia games at home; I thought we had a chance of taking something in them

CHEEKILY ENOUGH, I flew back with Northern Ireland to Belfast after our game this week. They were asking me how I normally travelled to the Faroes, so when I told them – usually via Copenhagen – they said they might have a couple of empty seats on their plane. They were very, very good, I have to say. Myself and my assistant, John McDonnell, got home about five hours earlier than normal. Mind you, they made the offer before we got the draw.

I was proud of the players, delighted for them, it’s hard to describe how much that result meant to them. They’d just come off a 5-1 defeat in Slovenia and we were missing some of our most important players, but they showed real effort, honesty and energy.

Going into the group we knew, realistically, it was unlikely that we’d be taking points off the three teams that were at World Cup this summer, Italy, Serbia and Slovenia, but in my head I targeted the Northern Ireland and Estonia games at home; I thought we had a chance of taking something in them.

Estonia away, our first game, was fairly devastating. We were still a goal up when the fourth official put up the sign for four minutes of injury-time. And then they scored twice. Morale-wise it was a huge blow for the players, they were devastated.

Next Serbia at home, the team we played in my first game in charge last year. Granted, there’s no real historical link between the two countries, but they could rely on a bit of help in the Faroes – there are about five Serbs playing in the league and a few who are now coaching, so they had some support and local information.

We lost 3-0 to them in the end, the key moment the first goal when Milan Jovanovic, the lad at Liverpool, handled the ball with both hands in the box. He knocked it back with his left hand to the player who scored. It put the Thierry Henry one in the ha’penny place.

Italy away. Two games in five days, which is always a problem for us when the players are playing at such a low level. Going into those two internationals they’d played three game in a week for their clubs – Sunday, Wednesday, Sunday – and had done a week’s work.

And then we got to Florence and the training pitch they had for us was awful. One of the players twisted his ankle in a sprinkler hole in the middle, which made the rest of the squad very nervous. I spent the afternoon with John going around in a car looking for a suitable pitch, but we couldn’t find one. It was unbelievable from the Italian FA, incredible – but that’s how it is with the Faroe Islands.

Unsurprisingly, the match didn’t go well. They moved it to Florence because the coach, Cesare Prandelli, was the Fiorentina manager. They had (Andrea) Pirlo back, (Antonio) Cassano was back, so that generated a lot of interest, it was a fairly hot atmosphere. We were battered on the night, 3-0 down at half-time, they were just too good, too fast, too strong for us, we couldn’t really get near them. It calmed down a little in the second half, but they got two more in the last 10 minutes.

Unfortunately in that spell our goalkeeper Gunnar Nielsen, who’s at Manchester City, put his shoulder out when he made a fantastic save from Cassano. He played on, but has missed our last two games. It wasn’t a good trip, then. Other than the hotel being nice.

I made some changes for the game in Slovenia, with the Northern Ireland match in mind. We had a lot of injury problems. Because league games are played on all-weather pitches in the Faroes a lot of the players are inclined to have groin problems. It’s an intense club season, it has to be very compact because of the weather. We were without our three big players now, the goalkeeper, Rogvi Jacobsen, our top goalscorer, and Suni Olsen, who’d be our main midfield man. And Jakup Borg had retired after the Estonia game. He just needs to spend more time on his business, he sells cars and tyres. He was a big loss.

A couple more pulled out because they couldn’t get off work, and another one or two who are students in Denmark said they needed to concentrate on their studies.

With Gunnar back in Manchester getting treatment I had to ask Jakup Mikkelsen to come out of retirement. He’s 40 but he’s still playing for his club, one of only four Faroese goalkeepers in a 10-team league. There’s a Hungarian, a Serb, a Romanian I think, a Croatian, six foreign goalkeepers out of 10 and none of them is brilliant by any means. Of course it stifles the chances of the young Faroese goalkeepers, which doesn’t help me.

We went early to Slovenia, on the Tuesday for a Friday match. The only way the association could afford a direct flight there was to go early and sell it as a package to Faroese people who’d like a trip to Slovenia to see Ljubljana and whatever else is beyond that.

But when we got there we discovered it had been raining heavily for two days and they told us the training pitch was flooded. They offered us an all-weather pitch, so that’s what we used. The players are well familiar with all-weather pitches but the whole idea is that we need them to train on grass before internationals. There’s always that adaption to be made for the players. Other countries complain about having to play on the all-weather pitch in Moscow, we’re the other way ’round.

It was a new stadium in Ljubljana, absolutely beautiful, held about 16,000. They had been telling us that the match had sold out – I can see a recurring theme here. Everyone we play doesn’t play in the main stadium or city, Maribor would be where Slovenia play most of their games. When we played France they had the game in Guingamp, up in Brittany, they’d never had an international before. When we played Austria the game was in Graz. Italy in Florence. That’s the trend now, they have our games in unusual places so they can generate big crowds, even though they’re only playing the Faroe Islands. So what we get is a full-on packed house having a go at us and the ref for every decision he makes. We’d much prefer to play in half-full stadiums.

They even did it in Romania. We played up north, it was nine hours on a bus for our supporters. The place was packed, the last home game before that they’d only had three or four thousand in Bucharest.

Slovenia played well, they’re a good side, huge, like a basketball team. We hung in well, some decent passages of play, but they got the breakthrough after 25 minutes. It was 5-0 with about 10 minutes to go, and I was thinking “God, this could get worse”. Then we got a goal late on which took the bare look off it. It was great for the kid who scored, Christian Mouritsen, he’s one I have great hopes for. Captain of the under-21s, very, very skilful. He was at Manchester City for two years, when he was 17, but he was injured most of the time. I think he has a future as a professional.

What I had to do was look for all the positives in the game. I got our video analysis fella to pull out the bits of the match that we did well in, when we passed the ball around well, made some chances, some neat football. He had to work hard to extract them. We looked at the goals we conceded in detail, went through all that stuff with them.

We regrouped in Toftir on the Sunday morning after church. We can’t train before 12pm, they don’t like anything happening before then for religious reasons up there. Ourselves and Northern Ireland were staying in the same hotel, which takes a little bit of getting used to. I had that experience when I was there with Ireland, so I know how it is being the opposition among the hosts. It’s a strange one. It takes away some of the palaver that surrounds international football, which can be quite ridiculous.

When the Germans were due to play there a few years ago they came up to inspect the hotel and when they heard the Faroes team would be staying there too they suggested to the manager that he build the Berlin Wall across the reception so they wouldn’t see each other. Needless to say yer man told them to go and jump in the sea. But that’s how bad they took it.

But it is a strange one. Now the hotel wouldn’t be the Burlington on a Saturday night, by any means, but you can’t avoid bumping into the opposition, the players, the manager, the staff. I think that’s slightly unsettling for them, but I wasn’t unhappy with that. I met many friends I’d have had among the NI staff and administration.

We made four changes in all, started reasonably well, there wasn’t much happening that the players wouldn’t have seen before or wouldn’t have expected. We got to half-time 0-0, I told them they’d up the tempo in the second half, we had to expect that. But we survived it, got a break and got the goal. A little bit of luck, but it was a good move. Then we had something to play with, while knowing it was going to be the Alamo from there to the end.

But they scored. Lafferty. A quarter of an hour to go, and you’re wondering if we can stand up to the pressure. The tension on the touchline, terrible. The thought that you might lose again having been ahead was awful, almost soul destroying. The intensity is head-wrecking at a time like that. But you can’t show it, you just have to keep encouraging everyone.

But we hung on. It was a good feeling. It was an important one for myself and John on a personal level, we knew there’d be a lot of interest in the game. It was the biggest it’s been media-wise in years in the Faroes, Sky showing the game, a lot of Northern Ireland media there. It was busy. I’d nearly forgotten how that is, in the Faroes there isn’t usually much interest in my press conferences.

There was a bit of kidding about Nigel Worthington calling me a British manager in the build-up to the game. I arrived at the stadium and they were trying out God Save the Queen when I walked out on the pitch. It was funny. I said it to the players, they were pointing out that it was MY national anthem, me being a British manager. But Nigel’s a grand fella, very gracious after the match, considering the disappointment he must have felt.

It was strange, after all that, to see the trouble at the Italy v Serbia game, it’s hard to believe we’re in the same group. A match abandoned because of crowd trouble? It’s so alien when you think of the atmosphere between the Faroes and Northern Ireland. Two extremes.

I don’t know what will happen with Serbia, we’re due to play them away in our last game, but we mightn’t have to go there at all. Or maybe they’ll have to play us behind closed doors in the Faroe Islands, the 20 Serbs living there peeping over the wall.

It’s been a hectic spell since August, but we have a bit of a break now, the next competitive game isn’t ‘til June. The best I can hope for is maybe one friendly and a warm-weather training camp in February or March. They don’t have the money to go off travelling and no one is dying to play us, so they won’t be paying for us to visit them. That’s the way it is, it’s not easy for the Faroe Islands, but results like the one against Northern Ireland on Tuesday keep them going.