Northern Ireland boss Michael O'Neill has said he's ready to follow the Republic of Ireland's lead and stun Germany after his side were pitted against the world champions in Saturday's Euro 2016 finals draw.
The North were handed a hugely difficult group, facing the Germans, Poland and Ukraine, but O'Neill is confident his men will rise to the occasion, and has taken heart from Ireland's exploits in the qualification campaign.
The Republic of Ireland took four points from Joachim Loew's team during qualification, including a memorable win in Dublin, and O'Neill is eyeing an upset of his own.
"It's a tough draw," the former Shamrock Rovers manager told RTÉ Sport. "Whoever came out of pot 1 we knew was going to be a challenge. We hoped it wasn't going to be the world champions but it is.
"The Republic of Ireland showed us in the qualifying that while it looks on paper a hugely difficult fixture you can get something from the game, so we’ll take hope from that.
"Poland are coming out of the Republic’s group as well we’ll get information on both those sides from Martin. Ukraine are probably a little bit more unknown. It’s a group that is difficult but we were in a difficult group for qualification and we won that. We don’t envisage winning this group but I believe we’re capable of getting out of it."
Northern Ireland start their tournament against the Poles in Nice, before taking on Ukraine in Lyon and finishing the group stages with that daunting clash against Germany in Paris.
"The most important thing is to try and take something from your first game," O'Neill said. "The fixtures maybe work in our favour, playing Poland and Ukraine before Germany, which might be the most demanding physically.
"At the end of the draw the chief executive said to me, 'Well you have to beat Germany if you want to win the tournament', and of course that was slightly tongue in cheek, but everybody's looking forward to it.
"You have to keep the thing alive until the final game. It’s a huge thing to play Germany in any competition. To play them in Paris will be very special."
O'Neill emphasised his desire to stay in contact with Martin O'Neill as he looks to garner every advantage possible ahead of next summer, and didn't rule out the two countries playing a friendly in the run-up.
"Possibly, we’ve talked about that briefly but it has to be in the interest of both teams. I think there is certain conditions about who you can and can’t play before tournaments," he said.
"We have our games scheduled for March and I believe Martin has his games scheduled so it doesn't leave us a lot of opportunity, but if we can help each other in any way I'm sure we will do.
"The island of Ireland can look forward to the tournament and hopefully both countries can do well."
