Hi °C | Lo °C With around 6,000 Northern Ireland fans ready to try and outdo the famous 'Hampden Roar' tonight, both the players and supporters will have one eye on the forthcoming World Cup campaign.
There will be a lot of hope, optimism and expectation following the heroic efforts of Euro 2008.
The beauty of Group 3 is that it has the potential to be very tight. The Czech Republic may be about to enter a transitional period while Slovakia and Slovenia - like ourselves - could either have a great campaign or an average one.
We certainly haven't forgotten Poland's last visit to Belfast in 2004, although the 3-0 drubbing at a sunny Windsor Park overshadows the battling display in Warsaw later in the campaign. A lot has changed since then.
Northern Ireland are a much better side now, and I don't think any team looks forward to visiting Windsor. Let's not overlook the fact that all of the wonderful results secured at home in the last three years came about through hard work, and total commitment. It will take the same level of performance from players and fans alike to continue those successes.
The price to be paid for the wins over England, Spain, Sweden and Denmark is the element of surprise has now gone.
The other price of success, from a fans' perspective, has been the spiralling cost of tickets for international matches. A block booking for the five World Cup qualifiers will cost you more that £170. Nothing gets cheaper, we know, but there has been a significant increase in prices when you consider that we are in the midst of a so-called 'Credit Crunch'.
Buying your tickets for five football matches should be a straightforward process, and shouldn't leave fans feeling squeezed.
Sure, let's be ambitious and try to improve all levels of our game, but asking a parent to pay over £500 in one go to take their two children to watch 'Our Wee Country' isn't the way to go about it. Nor is charging children in the Family Enclosure full adult price when they're actually a child for all but one of the games.
The IFA used the phrase 'No Prawn Sandwiches' when they launched the new IFA Premiership just a few weeks ago, but supporters of the senior international team are being asked to pay 'Prawn Sandwich' prices for their match tickets.
There's the wonderful half million-pound ticketing system which can't manage two payments from one person, and which would have cost an additional £18,000 to facilitate part-payment.
Around 4,000 fans availed of the staggered payment in the last two campaigns, and were happy to pay a £10 levy for the privilege.
Those extra 'tenners' would easily have covered the cost of setting up part payment, with more than £20,000 surplus which could in turn have been invested in the IFA's grassroots programmes. Alienating the customer and missing out on extra revenue.
A missed opportunity and, some would say, bad business.
