For seven and a half years, Michael McArdle worked in the construction industry while playing semi-professional football, studying for a degree in building services engineering and raising three young children together with his wife. Any leftover earnings he put into funding his football coaching badges. Eventually he took a big risk and decided to take “probably a 300% drop in salary” and commit to coaching, a life-changing moment that now may be leading towards a World Cup in Brazil next summer as the Northern Ireland Women’s manager.
After laying the foundations at Falkirk, St Mirren and Ayr United, a spell coaching Scotland Women’s Under-23 side and a role with the Scottish FA as the head of elite women’s football led to his appointment by Northern Ireland in March. Starting his reign with back-to-back victories against Malta in April helped secure a place in the playoffs for the 2027 World Cup, and McArdle’s team host Portugal on Friday at Inver Park in the first leg of their first-round playoff. He says his career experiences to date have aligned towards this “special moment in time” with Northern Ireland.
The 46-year-old and his wife, Tammy, were both born, raised in and have never left the North Lanarkshire village of Moodiesburn near Glasgow. I’m very comfortable that way, as an experienced coach, being vulnerable and open. That servant leadership style, I wanted to make sure that the [Northern Ireland] players are aware of that right away.” Now a Uefa Pro licence holder, McArdle was influenced by watching videos of the former Milan and Italy coach Arrigo Sacchi carrying out drills around a 4-4-2 formation.
McArdle believes a more flexible approach is needed with Northern Ireland, which is why his team deployed a variety of tactics across his first four games in charge: April’s wins over Malta and June’s narrow 2-1 defeats by Switzerland and Turkey. For a nation such as ourselves, from a population perspective, we’re the 150th nation in the world and we’re sitting 50th [in the Fifa women’s world rankings] because we do punch above our weight for passion for the sport. For me, though, and for us as a nation, we’re trying to go: ‘Let’s take a step beyond this, let’s sustainably now move towards competing on a regular basis at a higher level.’ “To take that step, sometimes you need to take a step backwards and take a few hits as well.
I wanted us to be exposed and embrace [being uncomfortable]. I kept referencing ‘playoff ready’, because ‘playoff ready’ is where we’ll be tested at the highest level. We learned so much about ourselves.
We need to be ready for everything as a small nation. If we stick to one strict style of play, we won’t be adaptable when it comes to those moments.” McArdle, a former goalkeeper, is eager to develop many of Northern Ireland’s younger players, having done so in Scotland. He says he had opportunities to leave the Scottish game before but the timing had not felt right.
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