Michael O’Neill went back to school in Belfast on Wednesday afternoon. He was at Campbell College watching a boys’ training session, catching up with teenagers in the Irish FA’s residential academy.

O’Neill is 56 and about to oversee his 99th and 100th games as Northern Ireland manager in World Cup qualifiers against Slovakia and Germany, a landmark pair of fixtures for any coach.

But reflection can wait as O’Neill’s eyes are on the here and now and the future.

“It’s a nice achievement, a nice thing to hold on to,” he says of the 100 number. “But if I left the job next week, I wouldn’t leave with a sense of fulfilment. I still think there’s more to achieve.”

Restlessness is a managerial quality O’Neill has never lacked. His is a mind continually searching – for players, bloodlines, formations and tactical routes to somehow make a population of under two million competitive against the likes of Germany’s 83 million. “Reality” is a word that crops up frequently in O’Neill conversations about the job.

O’Neill’s first spell in the post was from 2012 to 2020 with a short overlap at Stoke City from late 2019; his second began in December 2022 and is scheduled to run to 2027. The highs were reaching Euro 2016 and beating Ukraine in Lyon; a low was losing 3-2 in Luxembourg in 2013.

O’Neill knows this reality inside out; he knows Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann did not pre