Republic of Ireland Beats Germany; Northern Ireland Qualifies for Euro 2016

“That gives you an indication of the type of player and person he is”.

He added: “It’s just an unbelievable feeling, what we have to look forward to, but this is about the players, to see their reaction is where I get the real buzz”. Hot on their heels are players like Gomez, Max Kruse, Julian Draxler (VfL Wolfsburg) and Shkodran Mustafi (FC Valencia), Antonio Ruediger (AS Rome) and Schalke 04 youngster Leroy Sane.

How many teams qualify before the play-offs in November?

The game in Dublin was meant to clinch Germany’s place Euro 2016 in France.

When the German team will be moving into their 2016 base in Evian will be decided after the draw for the finals is made on December. 12, 2015.

Who is likely to qualify?

Scotland surged into the lead through strikes from Matt Ritchie and Steven Fletcher after Lewandowski’s early opener, but the draw coupled with results elsewhere meant Gordon Strachan’s side are consigned to fourth place Group D.

Tireless running, incredible effort and showed great awareness and presence of mind to kill the clock in the final minutes up by Germany’s corner flag.

That would leave Israel, Turkey, the Republic of Ireland, Slovenia, Hungary/Ukraine, Sweden, Croatia, and Albania to compete in the play-offs. “Billy Bingham also said in Spain ‘we can go to the bullring and we killed the bull.’ So let’s hope they [O’Neill’s team] can do a French equivalent”.

Derby skipper Chris Baird was celebrating, though, as Northern Ireland qualified for their first-ever European Championships – and their first major tournament since 1986.

Who are set to be the biggest casualties?

“Of course it would have been better to have two or three more training sessions, but that was not the reason for this defeat”.

Greece, champions in 2004, and Serbia, are already out of contention.

What happened to the Home Nations tonight?

They would have needed a win over Gibraltar and an Ireland win in Poland to finish third in the group ahead of the Poles.

Home fans celebrated an astonishing victory wildly at the final whistle, yet O’Neill’s men still have work to do if they are to join England and Northern Ireland at next summer’s tournament in France.

While Lansdowne Road was awash with permutations pre-match, the maths are simple now for Ireland on Sunday after Poland’s 2-2 draw against Scotland in Glasgow on Thursday ended the Scots’ hopes of qualifying. “Great night for Northern Ireland”, he tweeted.

Once the group stages conclude, when are the play-offs? Any ties that can not be separated after 90 minutes of the second leg will be decided upon by away goals and then penalties. And Daryl Murphy won the manager’s vote to take Robbie Keane’s place in attack.

Despite the number of countries to be represented at the Euro finals rising from 16 to 24, and a seemingly favourable draw, expectations were still low as the proportion of players turning out regularly in the top flight of English football continued to diminish.