The build-up has hardly been the stuff of dreams. A year of political and financial turmoil within FIFA during which the future of its president, Sepp Blatter, was repeatedly brought into question was bad enough.

But then there has been the ongoing problem of difficult relations between the two host nations. A couple of months ago, Peter Velappen, FIFA's leading administrator in Asia, was asked about the problems involved when two organising committees who barely seem to talk to each other attempt to run a World Cup. He cited schoolkids from the two nations staying in each other's homes for specially arranged football tournaments as an example of progress being made.

Even that initiative may have been scuppered, however, in the wake of the publication of What I Want to Tell the Japanese, the latest literary offering of Chung Mong-joon, president of the South Korean FA.

The "Why Japan isn't respected by other Asian nations" chapter is a cracker and is sure to help to build bridges. The truth is, though, that the book can hardly make an already ridiculous situation any worse.

For all the problems that remain to be overcome during the coming six months, however, there is considerable confidence round Merrion Square that, regardless of the outcome of this morning's draw, the finals can be as good as any that have gone before.

Certainly general secretary Brendan Menton and the rest of the association's delegation to Busan are positive about what they have seen in South Korea over the past couple of days.

Having only arrived on Thursday, their exposure is somewhat limited by comparison with that of Brian Kerr, who took an under-18 side to Japan for 10 days during the summer for an invitation tournament.

Four months on, Kerr is still somewhat bemused by the welcome he and his players received on their whirlwind tour of the country, admitting there were times when the Irish party occasionally came close to being "overwhelmed, so helpful were the Japanese".

He left the country with no doubts about their ability to stage a distinctly memorable event.

"I think that they'll handle the competition very well," he says. "Organisationally, I'd have to say that they seemed top class and there was definitely a huge amount of enthusiasm about the World Cup.

"Even for the tournament we were there for, there seemed to be to an amazing amount of bodies available to them and the people are incredibly friendly - I've never met people who laugh so easily.

"But it's the efficiency that they do everything with that was most striking. We came back from one game to find that on top of most of our bags were little plastic bags with any little things, toothbrushes and other stuff like that, that had been left in the rooms. Everything was neatly packaged up with the room numbers on the bags."

Kerr was also deeply impressed with the facilities made available to his players, who got to sample the sort of accommodation Mick McCarthy's men will experience next summer.

At the Tokamachi Highland Resort, one of the venues which has been attempting to woo the Irish back next year, practice pitches, golf and a whole range of other facilities are available in one compact site.

"When we came back from games they had all these pools, Jacuzzis and various baths in a sort of designated recovery area. It was top class and it's fairly typical of the sort of stuff we saw out there.

"If I had a reservation about some of the places, it's that it would be difficult to do anything private. The pitches were just across the road from the hotel and the whole thing was overlooked by a residential area. Now I know that that sort of thing isn't usually a problem with Mick, but it would be difficult to keep the photographers and whoever else away if you were trying to keep something to yourselves."

When it comes to the expense of staying there, Kerr admits the travelling party were looked after so well that he didn't really get an idea of how much things cost.

"From what I could see, though, it wasn't a long way off the sort of thing that you would expect in other big cities. We did have a bit of a problem with the laundry all right, our deal covered us to a certain amount after which, it turned out, it probably would have been cheaper to buy new stuff.

"It was about £6 to get a pair of socks done, although, to be fair, they did come back looking like they were new, everything incredibly neat in its own little package."

The more social side of things, he says, was manageable enough though. "I mean Paddy might struggle a bit after a while, but you can generally find a way of doing things a bit more cheaply. We went out one night and found a place a bit of the beaten track for a sing-song and it was absolutely fine, not that dear at all. I'd say that the fans who go over will figure it out well enough."

His team, he says, benefited immensely from the trip, with Kerr reckoning that it was a key factor in their more recent European Youths qualifying group success in Cork and Cobh. And even the locals' almost obsessive cleanliness took its toll on the youngsters.

"The dressing rooms were like operating theatres," he laughs, "and there were bins for every type of rubbish, plastic bottles, bandages and whatever.

"Normally teams would leave those places in a mess but when you'd go in and see it sparkling, you knew you couldn't do it. You just felt obliged to leave it the way that it was when you'd arrived so after each game we'd all end up cleaning up."

Strange days indeed, with more to come.