Tanya Oxtoby insists Northern Ireland’s hopes of sealing UEFA Women’s Nations League promotion remain “100%” alive despite suffering a 2-0 first leg defeat to Iceland on Friday evening.

It was a pair of set-pieces that proved to be the downfall for Oxtoby’s side with Bayern Munich centre-back Glodis Viggosdottir heading home from a free-kick before defensive partner Ingibjorg Sigurdardottir doubled Iceland’s advantage in the second half.

Northern Ireland were coming up against a team sitting 27 places higher in FIFA’s world rankings and who successfully qualified for the 2025 European Championships.

Oxtoby’s squad are aiming to reach the top level of European football, setting up a League A promotion/relegation showdown after finishing second behind Poland in the division below.

placeholder image — Northern Ireland thank the crowd following their 2-0 Nations League defeat to Iceland in Ballymena. (Photo by Stephen Hamilton/Presseye)

In the absence of captain – and star striker – Simone Magill through injury and several key defenders also missing, Oxtoby placed her faith in youth, and despite disappointment at defeat, the Australian coach was delighted with the standard of performance.

"I don’t think we celebrate defeat, but the performance was exceptional tonight,” said Oxtoby. “We have to celebrate that.

"I think the way in which the players executed the game plan, we haven't conceded from open play, it's 2-0, we're still in the tie.

"There's improvements to be made, so overall I’m really proud of the group. They can really take heart in that performance and I think they'll take a fair bit of confidence out of it too.

"We said you're going to have to suffer a little bit tonight. When you play good teams, you're not going to have the ball as much, you're going to have to suffer. Who are you going to be in those moments? I think we saw tonight what the group is about.

"They stuck together, if one got beat, the next one was in. That type of performance, as a manager, that's all you can ask for.”

The Icelandic side was packed full of quality with players on the books of Inter Milan, German giants Bayern and English WSL outfit Leicester City.

They’ve fallen into this play-off after finishing third in Group A behind France and Norway and hadn’t won a competitive match since July 2024 prior to Friday’s success in Ballymena.

Oxtoby insists her young group will take confidence to Reykjavík that they can turn the tie around.

"100% (it’s doable),” she added. “We didn't necessarily want to be too expansive tonight and push for a goal, we wanted to stay in our shape and look to counter.

"We want to go into the second leg in a position where we can go and push for that and I think we're in a position to do that, we're pretty confident.

"We'll review the game, have a look at the areas that we feel we can tweak, but we have to also stick to our strengths.

"We have to see who is fit and available. We're pretty bare bones at the moment, we're trying to manage players' minutes as well. Our game plan will depend on who is available, what we can do and build off tonight.”