Although he scored his first goal in the colours of Northern Ireland last night, Mark Williams says that the “embarrassing” nature of their defeat to Bulgaria far outweighs any personal satisfaction he may otherwise have taken from the game. The Wimbledon centre-half found the target after 15 minutes, negating Krassimir Balakov’s 7th minute goal, but walks away from the performance full of regret.
“That was my first international goal, but it means nothing because we lost and because of the way we gave those goals away, stated a downcast Williams. “Of course I was delighted about scoring and that was a special moment for me. But at the end of the day I feel embarrassed about losing four goals. We let those goals in far too easily. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb and it was just really disappointing.”
After his equaliser, Bulgaria responded just two minutes later when Martin Petrov struck. A free kick from Krassimir Tchomakov after 72 minutes and a second from Petrov five minutes later put the game, and qualification, beyond Sammy McIlroy’s side, but they did fight back to take two goals in the closing moments.
“A couple of the players have got to hold their hands up after that game because those were schoolboy errors, which we've got to eradicate,” said Williams. “We've got to stop making stupid mistakes and I don't just mean the defence, but the whole team. When we got it back to 1-1 we should have shut up shop for 10 minutes and kicked it out of the ground if we'd needed to. But instead we were trying to pass it in stupid areas and that was annoying. When you score three goals away from home you would expect something…I just can't believe those four goals”
Northern Ireland have amassed just 4 points so far, and their prospects do not look good for the return match on 2 June. Three players are likely to be absent: Jim Magilton has a forthcoming operation to treat circulation problems, Steve Lomas is unlikely to play again this season because of a knee problem and Williams was booked last night for a foul on Balakov. “I'm really frustrated by that,” he said. “I've worked hard to get back into the team and now I'll have to do it all again.” (PA)
Filed by Shane Stokes
