Northern Ireland defender Brodie Spencer said being underdogs against Italy "suits us" for Thursday's World Cup play-off semi-final in Bergamo. "Yeah 100%," Spencer replied when asked if the underdog title suited Northern Ireland. "Coming up through the age groups of Northern Ireland, we've always been seen as the underdogs and I think we thrive with that underdog title. "It suits us, you know, being the underdogs and a team sort of downplaying us. Then to be able to go out there and put in a good performance against big teams and then you can start to see the teams start to respect us a bit more."

Source: BBC March 23, 2026 11:28 UTC