A valiant performance proved not enough for Northern Ireland, who were defeated by Germany in Belfast.
The result leaves the Green and White Army three points behind Die Mannschaft and Slovakia heading into the final two World Cup qualifiers next month.
On what was his 100th game as Northern Ireland manager, Michael O'Neill shares his disappointment and labels the result as "a sore loss." The 56-year-old commented on his side's first half performance in which they found the back of the net through Dan Ballard, only for the flag to be raised, saying:
"I thought in the first half we lacked a bit of belief with the ball. Germany forced their physicality on top of us, and it was difficult for us to get any rhythm in the game.
"The disallowed goal would have helped us at that point, but it was offside. We shouldn't be offside in that situation so that's an error on our part."
The only goal of the game came in the first half from a corner, which was headed home by Nick Woltemade. However, O'Neill believed the goal was very much preventable.
"It comes off the player's shoulder and ends up in our net. That was the disappointing thing. But in the second half, we were terrific. We just couldn't force an equaliser in the end.
"It was a game that was going to be decided by something special or a bit of a freak goal, which is ultimately how it was decided."
-
"The crowd carried us when we needed them"
The Green and White Army certainly showed they are capable of competing against the very best, as demonstrated in the reverse fixture in Cologne last month.
This time round, O'Neill's young side battled hard and piled the pressure on the German defence, who had their backs to the wall in the second half, having dominated the opening 45 minutes.
The Northern Ireland boss believed home advantage was the biggest difference in comparison to the away fixture. The atmosphere at Windsor Park was once again raucous, with the home crowd once again getting behind the GAWA.
O'Neill commented: "We're at home, that's the biggest difference [to the reverse fixture]. We're at home and we're chasing the game. We've put a huge amount into the game on Friday night [in a 2-0 win over Slovakia], and the crowd carried us tonight when we needed them to carry us.
"We were chasing the game, so we are always going to try and find a way to get an equaliser."
