Northern Ireland striker Simone McGill believes all the pressure will be on Portugal when their Euro 2025 qualifier in Leiria on Friday night.
Portugal have won both of their opening two qualifying matches to top their group and are 25 places above Northern Ireland in the FIFA world rankings.
As a result, McGill will be hopeful Northern Ireland can embrace the task ahead and play without fear.
“The pressure is definitely on Portugal,” the 29-year-old told BBC Sport NI.
“All the expectations are on them, so we want to relish the challenge and for us we need to try and do what we’ve been doing.”
“We will fight against that.”
McGill was involved the last time Northern Ireland faced Portugal and will be hoping his current players can repeat the famous 1-0 away win in a friendly in 2017.
“We have good memories of playing against Portugal away. It will be difficult to play in the heat, but it will be a good test to see how well we do.”
The Aston Villa striker, who scored in Northern Ireland’s 3-1 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina in their last game, believes the result will give confidence to his young squad.
“We are in a transitional period and we had to struggle, especially in the last game away from home, but we showed great mentality and are improving with each game.”
“That will be to our advantage. [Friday] It’s a night we look forward to building on again.”
McGill is adamant that Northern Ireland must start well in Leiria if they are to cause an upset and achieve a favourable result.
“We’ve talked a lot in this campaign about starting early, and that’s definitely a big focus for us.
“It will definitely be a tough challenge – they are a top team, there will be heat and there will be fans, but we need to stay focused on ourselves, persevere and hopefully put in a good performance.”
