Northern Ireland fans celebrate defeat to Germany

Northern Ireland fans were in a jubilant mood despite losing 1-0 to Germany in their last Group game of Euro 2016.

A Mario Gomez goal proved enough for the world champions, but Northern Ireland fans were full of optimism of making it through to the last 16.

Fans also joked that Michael O’Neill should bring on Will Grigg in order to get a positive result in the knock-out stages.

“Well, we’re happy just to be in France for the tournament. But to get through to the final 16 would give a lot of people a lot of happy moments. So we’ll be happy to get through and I suspect that we will.

“Well I feel sorry for the rest of the team because Will Grigg is getting a lot of air time. Everyone else that has played hasn’t managed to get the same air time. I think Will Grigg is a little bit over exposed. But let’s hope that he comes on in the final-16 and scores that goal,” one fan quipped.

“Very unlucky. They put us under a lot of pressure. But we held out. The goalkeeper played out a superb game. How good was he!? Obviously [they] were the better side but we’ll go on from this. Who know? We’ll learn. And if we bring on Will Grigg we might even win a game.

“Yeah, easy. Let’s go quarters. Let’s go quarters, let’s have a go. Let’s give it a go and see what happens,” another offered.

“Unbelievable. For a small country. From the players we have to pick from we have done brilliant. We were happy to get here. To get into the last 16 fantastic!” a third crowed.

Their German counterparts termed the victory routine for the world champions.

“Of course we’re always going to win. Just like the World Cup. It will go down the same way. Schweinsteiger is going to take them there and Muller is going to get his Euro goal,” they chanted.