MICHAEL O’NEILL’S worst nightmare came true in the ground where they tell you to DreamBigger.
A shocking decision by French ref Marc Batta leaves Northern Ireland facing a massive uphill battle to reach their first World Cup finals for 32 years.
A dreadful penalty decision 13 minutes into the second half puts the Swiss favourites firmly in command for Sunday’s second leg.
They have not lost a competitive home match since September 2014 in a 2-0 defeat to England and now they merely have to sit back and sit on their controversial lead.
Blackburn’s Corry Evans was adjudged to have handled the ball when he turned away just as Stoke City’s Xeridan Shaqiri let rip with a volley from the edge of the box and the ball cannoned against his shoulder.
Batta ignored Northern Ireland’s fierce protests and after a slight delay Ricardo Rodriguez stepped and calmly planted a shot to the left of keeper Michael McGovern.
As if that wasn’t harsh enough, Batta also booked Evans which means he will be banned for the return game in Basel and unable to help put things right.
Boss Michael O’Neill’s line in the sand was to not concede a goal in the first leg. That was the minimum requirement.
It’s an area of relative expertise for his team, which let in only six goals while scoring 17, in ten qualifying matches in a group that included rampant world champions Germany.
And it looked like being another clean sheet when McGovern’s only other serious attempt at a save was a classy dive to his left in the 18th minute.
A superb ball in from the right by Shaqiri found striker Haris Seferovic who hit a right foot volley across goal but McGovern was quick enough to react.
Switzerland controlled possession of the ball but that’s nothing new to Northern Ireland at home or away.
They plan for that before every game and turn to sheer defiance and impressive organisation to carve out a few chances which they have to make the most of.
Xhaka missed one of Switzerland’s several good opportunities to take the lead in the 12th minute when his rising shot from 25 yards out sailed over the crossbar. Slightly better targeting and it would have been much more dangerous for McGovern to cover.
Just two minutes earlier Xhaka missed another opportunity to score. West Brom’s Jonny Evans made a defiant block at point blank range from Blerim Dzemalli and when the rebound spun to the Arsenal man, he injected too much lift into his snap shot.
The make-up of Northern Ireland’s squad is underlined by the fact that they had only two more Premier League players in their starting X1 than the Swiss opposition – four to two.
And O’Neill certainly cannot boast anyone from a club as illustrious as Arsenal, for whom midfielder Granit Xhaka is considered to play much better for his country than his club.
Northern Ireland knew they would be up against it. O’Neill said as much before the match. But he was banking on a special night at fortress Windsor Park to help his team through in the biggest game for more than 35 years in Belfast.
It was captain Steven Davis’s 100th appearance as well as a crucial match.
Northern Ireland did not get much of a sniff at goal and rarely troubled the Swiss goal.
But the awful decision by ref Batta came out of nowhere and the anger inside the stadium was compounded when goalscorer Rodriguez appeared to handball a Josh Magennis shot inside the box only for the appeals to be waved away.
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