Durham’s defensive ace Sarah McFadden has admitted that she was pleased to end a long goal drought in competitive football for Northern Ireland last night as they defeated Luxembourg 2-1 in Esch-sur-Alzette.
The 35-year-old played the full 90 minutes for Kenny Shiels’ side as they secured a third-place finish in their FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 qualifying campaign.
McFadden’s goal was her seventh for The Green and White Army at senior level. She last netted in a 3-1 international friendly win against the Faroe Islands back in February but you have to go back more than a decade for McFadden’s last goal in a competitive fixture. The defender netted four goals in Northern Ireland’s UEFA Women’s EURO 2009 qualifying campaign including a hat-trick against Croatia in the preliminary round. Her last competitive goal came in a 3-1 defeat to the Czech Republic in the qualifying round.
When speaking to the Irish FA after scoring against Luxembourg last night, McFadden admitted that it felt good to net in competitive international football again.
“It’s incredible,” McFadden said. “I don’t think I’ve scored since 2007 maybe when we were playing the Czech Republic.
“It was something that Kenny (Shiels) spoke about, that us defenders need to contribute more and today, it was the defenders who scored the goals.”
Northern Ireland were missing influential attacking players against Luxembourg in Rachel Furness and Simone Magill. McFadden was pleased to still be able to get the victory against a much-improved opponent.
She said “Luxembourg have improved so much since the last time that we played them. We were a completely different team back then, we had gone nearly a year unbeaten, we are in a different part of our journey at the minute.
“We have got to keep remembering that we are still little Northern Ireland and we are still building and progressing, especially today when we are missing 50-60 goals of our history, it’s a big thing to come out and get the three points. Luxembourg are in fourth place so they are our nearest rival.”
Northern Ireland complete their FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 qualifying campaign against Latvia in Jūrmala on Tuesday afternoon.
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