Northern Ireland's goal drought ended in Maribor as Corry Evans scored the most important goal of his career so far to give his country all three points in their opening Euro 2012 qualifying match on Friday night.
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Slovenia 0 - 1 Northern Ireland
Evans, the younger brother of Manchester United first team regular, Jonny Evans, had only been on the pitch for four minutes before he slid home an inviting cross from the wing on his senior competitive debut, to give the team in green their first goal in almost a year and their best start to a qualifying campaign in recent memory.
Slovenia, whose last competitive match in Maribor was a win over Russia which took them to the World Cup for the first time, peppered the Northern Ireland defence for much of the second half, but found no way through against a stubborn back four led by Motherwell's Stephen Craigan.
Craigan lead the team for the match out on his 50th cap.
Northern Ireland had started the game brightly.
Nigel Worthington played David Healy and Warren Feeney up front and both had half chances in the first half.
In the second half, Slovenia pressed for the game's first goal, but just as it looked like Northern Ireland might concede, Nigel Worthington's team went down the other end and scored one themselves in the 70th minute.
Evans said afterwards: "I haven't scored for Northern Ireland since I was a schoolboy, so to get on the scoresheet in such an important match is fantastic.
"We've had our criticism over our away from and for not being able to score goals, so to win away with a clean sheet is great."
Manager Nigel Worthington said: "I thought the way we played in the first half was fantastic. We had a game-plan, stuck to it and caused them problems.
"We started the second half slowly but defended well. We knew Slovenia would throw the kitchen sink at us but we got our blocks in, it was fantastic."
Worthington hailed his youngsters, adding: "I'm delighted with Craig Cathcart, he did a good solid job, stuck to it - great credit to him.
"I have no fears about Corry, I've worked with him for three years. He showed what he can do and not just with his goal, while young Jonny Gorman came on and showed maturity as well.
"Overall our performance was superb. The players deserve all the credit because they worked hard all week and stuck to the game-plan tonight.
"It gives us a nice start to the campaign and now we'll look forward to meeting up for the Italy game at Windsor Park next month."
One thousand fans made the trip to Slovenia and they were in full voice at full time.
Northern Ireland have never qualified for a European Championship.
On the evidence of this win in Maribor, that could be about to change.
Northern Ireland: 1. Maik Taylor 2. Gareth McAuley 3. Craig Cathcart 4. Stephen Craigan 5. Chris Baird 7 Stephen Davis 8 Grant McCann 9 David Healy 10 Warren Feeney 11 Chris Brunt 18 Aaron Hughes (Captain)
Subs: 12 Jonathan Tuffey 4 Sammy Clingan 13 Corry Evans 14 Kyle Lafferty 15 Martin Paterson 16 Rory Patterson 17 John Gorman
Slovenia: 1. Samir Handanovic 2. Miso Brecko 3. 5 Bostjan Cesar 8 Robert Koren 9 Zlatan Ljubijankic 10 Vlatar Birsa 11 Milivoje 13 Bojan Jokic 17 Andraz Krim 18 Aleksander Radosavljevic 22 Matej Mavric Rozic
Subs: 12 Jasmin Handanovic 4 Marcko Suler 6 Branko Ilic 14 Zlatko Dedic 9 Josip Ilicic 21 Dalibor Stevanovic 23 Tim Matavz
© UTV News