Northern Ireland begin their World Cup qualifying campaign with a tough looking trip to Russia.
Michael O'Neill's men begin their campaign
Northern Ireland begin their World Cup qualifying campaign with a tough looking trip to Russia.
Michael O'Neill embarks on his first qualifying match in charge after taking over from Nigel Worthington late last year.
The Northern Irish have not qualified for the World Cup since 1986 and they have a difficult task on their hands to come through Group F.
Portugal and Russia are firm favourites to progress from a group also containing Israel, Azerbaijan and Luxembourg.
O'Neill goes into the game with one of his strongest squads available to him with Fulham's Aaron Hughes back in the squad after being persuaded out of retirement earlier this year.
With Manchester United's Jonny Evans and Hughes's Fulham team-mate Chris Baird and West Brom's Gareth McAuley included, then O'Neill could name and all-Premier League defence.
Newcastle left sider Shane Ferguson has been ruled out through injury, along with Burnley's Martin Paterson, Aberdeen's Niall McGinn and Paddy McCourt of Celtic.
Chris Brunt and Steven Davis are both available and could line-up in central midfield whilst Kyle Lafferty - now at Sion looks set to take a lone striking role.
New Russia boss Fabio Capello takes charge of his first competitive game since leaving England.
The Italian has already looked to make some sweeping changes to the Russian squad, which failed to live up to expectations at Euro 2012.
Roman Pavlyuchenko, Andrey Arshavin and Pavel Pogrebnyak have all been left out.
Yuri Zhirkov and Sergei Semak were both sidelined through injury with Igor Denisov named by Capello as his new captain.
