SAINT-GEORGES DE RENEINS, France - When Jamie Ward walks out at Parc des Princes to face Germany on Tuesday he will kiss his shinpads. On each of them is a picture of his fiancee, Jade, with his five-year-old son, Hudson.
He will attempt to do what he and Northern Ireland do best -- going toe to toe with the likes of Mesut Ozil and Thomas Muller, and grinding them down through sheer force of will.
Such an approach is at odds with the relaxed surroundings of Northern Ireland's training camp at Saint-Georges de Reneins, 40 minutes north of Lyon, but Ward has typified their revival in Group C. His inclusion for the match with Ukraine was one of five changes made by manager Michael O'Neill from a defeat to Poland that, while close on paper, contained little of the application the side has shown over the past two years.
Ward was excellent on the right flank in a more attack-minded 4-3-3, working tirelessly to set his team on the front foot and doubling back to protect against the threat of winger Yevhen Konoplyanka; the step up in tempo brought a 2-0 win and if -- and it is a huge if -- they can draw with Germany an almost certain place in the round of 16.
"It was one of those times where I just felt good going into the game, felt good on the ball," Ward said. "Obviously there were some things I could have done better, don't get me wrong, but I knew I had to put a big performance in, work hard, and make sure the team came out on top."
Northern Ireland did. From the first minute, when they won a corner virtually from the kickoff, there was an intensity they had lacked against the Poles and -- even if it took until the 49th minute for Gareth McAuley's header to confirm their superiority -- Ward and Co. scented blood from the off. Corry Evans, another of those brought in for the game in Lyon, said he "knew [Ukraine] were going to be rattled" after that fast start and Northern Ireland kept up the same level of aggression throughout, even after a brief second-half delay caused by a hailstorm.
"Obviously Michael thought a different system [effectively a 5-4-1] would have worked in the first game," Ward said. "Unfortunately it didn't but it wasn't a major blow to us. We knew we had another game coming up and could do different things, going back to what we are good at.
"[O'Neill] showed a lot of faith in people by changing the team. As hard as it is for people coming out, we're still tight as a group and we're all in it together."
It appears to have been a masterstroke in tournament management by O'Neill, one of whose changes saw the influential striker Kyle Lafferty -- who scored seven times in qualifying but struggled against the Poles -- dropped to the bench. The extra speed and movement of his replacement, Conor Washington, paid divided against a static Ukrainian back line and Lafferty himself admitted afterwards that O'Neill had got the call spot on.
There was certainly no sign of resentment in the camp on Sunday, Lafferty leading the pretraining run while attempting to juggle a ball and causing laughter when his success was mixed.
It is evidently a close, club-style dynamic and perhaps times like these, when the toughest of decisions have to be made, is when team spirit becomes less a nebulous concept than something that can decide the most finely poised of matters.
"You'll always have a little bit of bickering between 23 men and stuff like that, but everyone gets on fine," Ward added. "We can all sit with one another at dinner or go and get a coffee, and there are no groups in that respect. We're all tight, we're basically like a group of friends at school that just mess about and have a laugh."
Now they must surprise Germany on Tuesday. A defeat might not be the end of the world for Northern Ireland, who have a positive goal difference and would only be in severe danger of failing to progress as one of the best third-placed teams if they lost by four goals.
They will, as always, be well prepared: O'Neill provides his players with detailed dossiers on each team and individual they are to face, and they will have to stick to their plan like never before. Ward believes the Germans are unlikely to be preoccupied by any threat they pose, telling broadcast media that Northern Ireland's work rate might cause concern but "apart from that, not much else."
That is, of course, characteristic of this squad's self-effacing attitude but Ward was a shade more bullish after the cameras had been switched off. "We know we're good enough to cause a few problems," he said, and expressed confidence in the team's defence too.
"We've not conceded in the first half for an awfully long time [11 games ago, against the Faroe Islands]," he said. "The longer the game goes on they will probably become more of a threat, but we know we've got a good enough defence to deal with them -- and we know that if we get a half-chance we might take it."
If they do that while the game is tight, then they will take another giant step towards the knockout phase. "There's only one way that our team knows how to play," Ward says, and if that yields another famous result then Jade and Hudson will probably forgive his shinpads a few more rappings over the days to come.