Levi Rothermund
Baraclough: “No bitterness” after Northern Ireland exit, proud of players he brought through
“If you’ve got bitterness and resentment in football, then it’ll eat you up inside,” Ian Baraclough says, looking back at his time as Northern Ireland manager. He speaks with the calm of someone who has had time to process what happened, who has watched the group he helped build begin to flourish.
Baraclough took charge of the senior side in September 2020 after managing the under-21s. He arrived at a pivotal moment — only three managers have ever taken Northern Ireland to a major tournament: Peter Doherty, Billy Bingham and Michael O’Neill. For a brief window, Baraclough stood on the cusp of joining that list.
In his sixth game in charge he led Northern Ireland into a Euro 2020 play-off against Slovakia at Windsor Park, having progressed by beating Bosnia-Herzegovina on penalties. Late in normal time, Kyle Lafferty — playing a week after the death of his sister — fired a long-range effort that rattled the post and bounced away. Extra time eventually produced Michal Duris’ scruffy winner, the ball deflecting off Johnny Evans for Slovakia’s goal, and Northern Ireland missed out.
“The width of a post is what can change outcomes and what can change careers, isn’t it?”
“Moments in that game stick with me,” Baraclough adds. “You look back and I feel as though we should have won. What could have been? But there you go.”
The timing of fixtures because of Covid-19 meant Baraclough was the man to finish the qualifying campaign — Michael O’Neill had planned to wrap up before fully taking over at Stoke City. Baraclough accepts that, had the result gone the other way, the achievement might still have been seen as O’Neill’s. But the narrow defeat cleared the way for Baraclough to pursue a longer-term brief: to build a “younger, more dynamic team over a period of time.”
He promoted players from the under-21s — Dan Ballard made his senior debut in Baraclough’s first match, a 1-1 draw in Romania in September 2020. Over the next two years he handed senior debuts to Conor Bradley, Trai Hume, Shea Charles, Ali McCann, Brodie Spencer and a dozen others.
Baraclough has been candid about the trade-off this involved. “The understanding was that results would drop for a certain period whilst those players were given experience,” he says. “To actually give them game time before they were even playing club football was a bit of a risk.”
He points to a Nations League win over Kosovo as an example. “I looked at their squad compared to ours and I thought, ‘geez, they’re playing at a much higher level’, but we were in transition, so we had to run with that.”
Despite signing a new contract that would have carried him through to Euro 2024, Baraclough was replaced 25 months after taking charge. Michael O’Neill returned to the role. Baraclough finished with six wins and eight draws from 28 games.
“At the time, I found it very, very disappointing that I didn’t get a World Cup and a Euros because that was what, ultimately, you were going to be judged on… That was the disappointment for me, but, look, there’s no bitterness.”
He accepts the realities of football decisions. “Michael becomes available from Stoke, for instance, and decisions will be made that are out of your hands,” he says. Yet he takes satisfaction in seeing the players he introduced now established at senior international level.
“This World Cup campaign was somewhere where we looked into the distance and thought realistically this is the best time for this group to really start making an impact,” he adds. “Players will now have 100, 150 first-team games under their belts, they’ll have 20 to 25 senior caps or beyond, and now they’re just starting to feel comfortable at this level.”
Baraclough stresses he does not claim sole credit. “It’s not one person per se that can lay claim to somebody’s success but, just for me, I love looking back and saying I really enjoyed my time working with them and hopefully I helped in some way in developing them as people and as players.”
New role in Scotland and a serious injury
Since April 2025 Baraclough has been sporting director at Partick Thistle in the Scottish Championship. The club sit second in the table, six points behind St Johnstone but with a game in hand. He says the work at Firhill — building a younger, dynamic squad — echoes what he tried to do with Northern Ireland.
There was a dramatic and painful chapter off the pitch. After helping to appoint Mark Wilson as Thistle’s permanent manager in May 2025, Baraclough went on honeymoon to Mauritius. A wave slammed him into the sand, leaving fractured vertebrae and damage to his spinal cord. He spent a month in a Mauritian hospital and feared he might never walk again.
“I ended up being in hospital in Mauritius for a month. I’m back full-time now, I’m, thankfully walking and able to do most things that I’ve wanted to.”
He thanks the club for standing by him during recovery. “It has certainly put things into perspective anyway,” he says.
Baraclough is watching Northern Ireland now as a former manager, with no bitterness, and a clear sense that the project he started has taken root. “It’s now come to fruition,” he says of the current squad. “To see those players come through and be doing so well at a senior level, it’s fantastic.”