NI players 'stepping into unknown' in Bulgaria - Feeney

As his old side head to a country he still views as a "second home", former Northern Ireland striker Warren Feeney is expecting Michael O'Neill's squad to receive a "hostile" welcome in Sunday's Nations League encounter against Bulgaria.

Northern Ireland's four previous visits to the country have been qualifiers staged in the capital Sofia, the most recent a 2-1 defeat in October 2021, but this League C3 contest will instead be played at the Stadion Hristo Botev in Plovdiv.

Feeney coached against Botev Plovdiv during his spell as Pirin Blagoevgrad manager between 2019 and 2021 and thinks the location of the game will add to a febrile atmosphere.

"One thing about the Bulgarians is they will be a very, very hostile support. 100 percent that’s why they will have taken it out there," said the 43-year-old whose most recent managerial job was at Glentoran last season.

“It’ll be a big atmosphere, probably the best atmosphere I experienced.

"There are probably things you would not get away with back home that you get away with out there and it certainly brings an atmosphere. You’re going into the unknown."

Thirty years on from reaching the World Cup semi-finals with a team spearheaded by Hristo Stoichkov, Bulgarian football has fallen on hard times of late.

While it was not so long ago that they could call on the likes of Dimitar Berbatov - the former Manchester United and Tottenham striker played his youth football at Feeney's old side Pirin - Martin and Stylian Petrov, Illian Illiev's current squad does not possess the star power of old.

After Thursday's 0-0 draw with Belarus, their only win in their last 16 games came against Tanzania and they finished bottom of their group in qualifying for Euro 2024.

Feeney, though, warns against underestimating their ability.

"When they finished fourthth at in the World Cup, they had some of the world’s greatest players at that time, [Hristo] Stoichkov, [Yordan] Letchkov. A lot of their players were out of the country, playing in Germany and Italy.

“But you just have to look at the [domestic] football as well. Remember Ludogorets, who are one of the top teams out there, beat Crusaders 9-0 [on aggregate in the Champions League qualifiers of 2018].

"It is a big football country with very good players. You can't underestimate Bulgarian football. It can be a lot slower, but they’re technically very, very good players.

"In my team I had players who had been playing for Aston Villa, Fulham, Dynamo Moscow, PSV. Top, top players.”

Having entered this campaign with just one win in 16 Nations League games, Northern Ireland opened their 2024 campaign with a 2-0 win at home over Luxembourg.

In what was the first game for the country since Jonny Evans announced his international retirement, only Paddy McNair and George Saville of the starting outfield players had more than 25 caps at kick-off.

For Feeney, winning games is important for the young panel.

“With the turnover of players, the more games he can get behind them the better but obviously it's about winning.

“You want to go into the Nations League and want to win games because it brings good habits to everyone else and you don’t want to go through Nations League games when you’re not winning.

“It's a competition that you can move a few around, but at the end of the day you want to get the right results and get the fans all back and the buzz around Northern Ireland back to what it was."