Former Northern Ireland assistant manager set to work with Cristiano Ronaldo after Portugal appointment alongside Aston Villa role

MacPhee, who had previously held coaching positions at Cowdenbeath and St Mirren, joined Michael O’Neill in the Northern Ireland set-up in 2014 and played a key role as they successfully qualified for Euro 2016, topping Group F which also included Romania, Hungary, Finland, Faroe Islands and Greece.

O’Neill praised the impact of MacPhee’s "obsessive attention to detail" with his set-piece expertise helping provide 11 goals throughout qualifying for Northern Ireland.

In what was a golden period for Northern Ireland, they became the first team in history to win a qualifying group having been seeded in Pot Five and marked a record 10-game unbeaten run by beating Slovenia in March 2016 at Windsor Park.

MacPhee worked alongside O’Neill for 63 internationals before the latter took up the managerial role at Stoke City.

The 45-year-old remained with Northern Ireland under Ian Baraclough and was again praised for his role in their Euro 2020 semi-final play-off penalty shootout win over Bosnia.

MacPhee ultimately departed in 2021 to become assistant manager of Scotland and combined that role with set-piece coach at Premier League outfit Aston Villa – a post which he still occupies.

He will now link up with European powerhouse Portugal ahead of their UEFA Nations League play-off against Denmark next month, working with a star-studded squad which includes Ronaldo, Manchester United captain Fernandes and AC Milan’s Rafael Leao.

Speaking about MacPhee in 2019, O’Neill told BBC: "What he's brought to me is a high level of knowledge on the opposition, a creative way to train, which is particularly important in international football, when you have a short time to prepare, and he's been creative in how he brought information to the players and how it has been communicated to the players.

"We have players like Jonny Evans, Steven Davis and Craig Cathcart who have played at the highest level in the Premier League and he has a lot of respect from those players.

"Austin has a good way of looking at the game and has a lot of initiatives that are extremely valuable to Hearts."

MacPhee left his Scotland role last year due to his father’s illness and manager Steve Clarke was also full of praise for the impact he had.

"Austin was great for me, he took a lot of workload away with the set-plays as well as being a proficient coach, he reads the game well,” he said. "We always have good conversations and he's a Scotland fan.

"It was great to have his enthusiasm in and around the camp. He felt every defeat badly and he felt every win fantastically, so he's a big miss for us.”