5 days Ago
Northern Ireland's Isaac Price hit a hat-trick against Bulgaria in October Isaac Price insists Northern Ireland are fiercely determined to finish 2024 on a high by beating Luxembourg on Monday night and topping their Nations League group. Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, the 21-year-old also revealed his joy at learning he had followed in the footsteps of the iconic George Best by scoring a hat-trick in a 5-0 victory at Windsor Park. For the Standard Liege star that was in last month’s battering of Bulgaria - 53 years on from Manchester United legend Best doing it against Cyprus.
“George Best is one of the greats of the game and the greatest the country has ever had so to score a hat-trick after him at Windsor Park in a 5-0 win was an unbelievable achievement for me,” said Price. “It was a bit surreal for me and my family hearing all about that. Luckily my mum and dad were there to witness what was a great night.
“You dream of that sort of stuff when you are a kid. To go down in the history of the nation is great.” Price and his team-mates can create more history in Luxembourg.
The Nations League has not been a kind tournament to Northern Ireland in the past but in the 2024 version Michael O’Neill’s young guns need a point in the final game to top their group for the first time and earn promotion to section B of the competition. It has been a highly encouraging year already for Northern Ireland and Price wants to end it with another night to savour. “Yes 100 percent.
We want to go out and win and top the group. This year has been great for us. Confidence is high and hopefully we keep doing well,” said Price.
“We have had a good campaign and only lost one game away to Bulgaria which was disappointing but the rest of the games we have been good. “We’ve shown we can score goals and most importantly we have kept a lot of clean sheets and we have been tough to break down. We hope to do the same against Luxembourg.
We know we have the talent to do it. “We obviously have a very young side but we are sort of looking past that now as in we have caps under our belts with players who have 15 to 25 appearances and some senior players who have played many more times so we have a good mix.” While the 5-0 victory over Bulgaria was stunning, the 2-0 triumph against Belarus in Belfast showed a different side to O’Neill’s players, “It is hard when you come off such a big win at home because expectations go up, as they should really because we showed what we can do, but going into the Belarus match it was a different game,” said ex-Everton ace Price.
“In the first half I thought we were really good but we didn’t finish the chances that we had. All the possession was in their half and then we came out fast in the second half and scored two goals which helped us get the win and that’s all that really matters.” On a personal note following his hat-trick versus Bulgaria – the first for Northern Ireland since David Healy in 2007 – Price added: “It is a little bit hard to live up to because you come off scoring a hat-trick and you get all the praise and you go back to club football and it’s a little bit different.
“Obviously the style of play is different and the tempo of the game is different but everyone expects you to go and score more goals and it is not as easy as that. “It fills you with confidence though and you go into games feeling good knowing what you can do. “Sometimes as a player you might feel like you can do certain things but then to go and put it into a game and do that is a different question.
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