ter Stegen looks forward to fun on last match day against Northern Ireland

Macdara Ferris at the Stade de France

Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen watched on from the dugout at the Stade de France on Thursday night as his German side drew 0-0 with Poland. The  point they picked up kept his team top of Group C.

As he told extratime.ie afterwards, prior to kick-off he also watched the conclusion of the other game in the group. That was the historic win for Northern Ireland in their debut at the European Championship and Germany will play the North in the next game.

“I know it is big news,” said ter Stegen about what the 2-0 Northern Irish victory over Ukraine means back in Ireland. “They fought till the end and scored with the last chance. They made a good match. They wanted to win it and had the mentality to win it. It will be fun on the last match day!”

Easy for Michael O’Neill’s men then, beat the World Champions and they will qualify for the last 16, with France possibly opponents. However the German ‘keeper didn’t seemed overly concerned about the threat to his team from Northern Ireland.

“It was not expected…I’m sorry…that they would win it,” said the Champions League winning ‘keeper apologizing with a smile to this member of the media from Ireland! “They played a good game and they deserved it. We have one last match (in the group) and if we win it, I hope we will be first in the group afterwards.”

ter Stegen then spoke about the Republic of Ireland’s next two opponents. The Barcelona player said that the favourite game he has watched away from his own team was the 2-0 win for Italy over Belgium. “Everybody expected a good match. It was really interesting how Italy behaved when Belgium tried to score and how Italy moved.”

extratime.ie asked him was he surprised at the defeat of one of the pre-tournament favourites Belgium? “No, against Italy it is really difficult to play. You you can play four nights against them and they will always focus on the defence and then they will have some chances.

“Belgium have a good team and I think that if they win the next match (against the Republic of Ireland), they will make the next stage. Normally we get the opportunity to see other matches. It is always good for us to see what the possible opponents do at the moment and see how they perform.”

The difficulty for ter Stegen is that his international game time is limited due to the fact that Manuel Neuer has that number one jersey. “He is a great goalkeeper; at the moment, the best goalkeeper in the world,” said ter Stegen about the German captain.

“He has a perfect technique as a goalkeeper and he is good with his feet. It is difficult to beat him. He is playing good and deserves his position because of the last few seasons, the World Cup and Euro Cup. For me it is important just to be there for the team and perform good in training so that the players see that everything is fine behind Manuel.”

Coming through the mix zone after the game, extratime.ie also heard from Thursday’s UEFA man-of-the-match Jerome Boateng. The Bayern Munich player had come up against his club teammate Robert Lewandowski in the match and effectively shut the Polish captain out of the game.

“It is hard, as he is difficult to play against,” said Boateng about Lewandowski. “He is one of the best strikers. Today we defended well as a team. I know him very well. He knows me. He had a good game and a lot of support from the offensive players from Poland around him that made things difficult.”

Speaking just after the game, Boateng had acknowledged that the return of Borussia Dortmund’s Mats Hummels, in place of Shkodran Mustafi, helped the defensive approach of Germany. “Mats is a very important player for us,” said the 27-year-old. “You saw it today. We know each other well and that helps but the whole team worked really well today.”

You can read managerial reaction from Joachim Low and Adam Nawalka from the Stade de France here.