Burton Albion pair Tom Flanagan and Matty Lund watched from the substitutes' bench as Northern Ireland were defeated 3-1 by Germany at Windsor Park on Thursday night.
A second-minute wonder-strike from Sebastian Rudy set the world champions on their way to qualification from Group C, with further strikes from Sandro Wagner and Joshua Kimmich sealing Germany's spot in next year's World Cup in Russia.
Josh Magennis' header gave the Northern Ireland faithful inside Windsor Park something to cheer about, however, and they head into Sunday night's meeting with Norway with a good chance of securing a play-off place should other results over the weekend go their way.
Brewers duo Lund and Flanagan failed to get off the bench once again for their national side, and will return to Burton upon the conclusion of the 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign after Sunday's match.
Should they remain benched for that Norway clash - in which Northern Ireland might still need a point to make it into next month's play-offs - the pair will have made four appearances on the bench since their last appearance in June's win over New Zealand.
And although Brewers boss Nigel Clough can see the benefits of his players joining up with their national sides, he thinks players can become alienated from the first-team squad given the meticulous preparation that goes into the starting XI - especially against the current world champions.
"It's a difficult one, because a lot of the time there'll be 24 players out there I would think, so you've almost got two teams," he said.
"Everything will be based, and rightly so, on the team that's preparing for the game, it's just keeping the others up to speed and getting them to do enough.
"It's a long time they're away, a week, when everything's concentrated on the first XI and preparing for games.
"They don't get forgotten, but obviously they're not as important as the starters.
"Although they are training and ticking over, they're not playing games - which is good because they can't get injured!
"But, it would be nice if they could do a little bit more at times."
