Soccer FIFA World Youth Championship: It was an off-the-record conversation, so it can't be reported, but fairly recently a football manager, who shall remain nameless, was called upon, in an emergency, to referee an under-12 camogie match. He admitted, confidentially, that it was the most harrowing episode of his life, with the liveliest querying of his credentials coming from a girl who just happened to be his daughter.

So, are this lot easier to handle?

"Oh God, yeah," says Gerry Smith, looking over at his Republic of Ireland under-20 squad. "Oh God, yeah," he says again, with feeling. And he says it with such conviction that you couldn't help but believe him. The World Youth Cup will be a cinch, after that.

He's a relieved man, having got his squad-picking duties out of the way, a task, he admits, that caused him considerable agony.

"Don't forget, this is the World Cup," he says. "When you get disappointments at your club there's always another match, but when you're left out of a World Cup it mightn't happen again. The only thing I can say is that the squad was picked honestly, but it was very, very difficult - 30 into 20 never works, no matter how hard you try.

"It wasn't easy to leave the stand-by fellas behind, my heart went out to them - don't forget, it was Brian (Kerr) who worked with these fellas over the years, I was left with the end piece," he says, in reference to his succession to the under-20 managerial job following Kerr's elevation to the senior post early this year.

"We have what we have and away we go - we're ready to roll," he says of his squad, who have been drawn in a group with Saudi Arabia, the Ivory Coast and Mexico. Their campaign starts today against the Saudis, followed by games against the Ivory Coast (Tuesday) and Mexico (Friday). After that? "Well, the first target is just to get out of the group. After that we'll see what we get," says Smith.

"To be honest with you I'd know nothing about the teams we'll play, apart from the fact that they'll have 11 players on the pitch, that's as much as I'd know," says Longford Town's Seán Dillon. "It's really about what we do - if we work hard, if things click, we get a bit of luck, you'd never know, we could be buzzing coming home, never mind going away."

A medal would complete your year?

"Ah jeez, yeah," says Dillon, "and any kind of a medal would do. But you have to aim high, no point going there otherwise."

Last year Dillon was away in Portugal with the under-19s. "We played two games and I was the only player not to get on the pitch, so that was a bit of a nightmare, and on the Friday we flew back to Dublin. Then Aston Villa got in touch and just said, 'report to the training ground'. So I went in and the academy director, who's a terrible nice fella, just turned around and said, 'Contract for next year?' I looked at him, he looked at me, and he said, 'Well, we're not going to give you one'. So that was it."

Bitter about it all? Na.

"D'you know, I'm the luckiest fella in the world," he says.

An FAI Cup winners' medal with Longford, a call-up to the Irish squad (after the withdrawal of Stephen Brennan) and in the final year of an Architectural Engineering course at Coláiste Íde in Finglas? Life's grand.

"Loving it at Longford, every minute of it, I just want to stay there now," he says. "The whole club is buzzing, you couldn't say enough about them. The fans - well, I know everyone says the same about fans, but the Longford people are just brilliant.

"When I got released from Villa it was quite disappointing, but definitely no complaints about it, they were good to me - everyone had a chat, helped me out, so it was fine. To be honest it was the best thing in the end. I've no qualms about my time at Villa, none at all. Of course, if they'd offered me a three-year contract I'd have taken it straight away, but things often work out for the best, don't they?

"They looked after me well, got me trials here and there, but the money situation was poor in England, nobody could afford to give contracts to players, so I came home. Spent a bit of time at Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers, then Longford came in.

"I spent six weeks on the FAI's REAP (Reinvention, Education, Appraisal and Preparation) course and to be honest I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't gone on it - it definitely helped me a lot. The main man behind it, Darragh Sheridan, who was at Villa and is now at Longford, was just brilliant.

"I've had so much luck since then, this will be my second trip to the UAE. When I came home from Dubai the last time (in January) I gave my jersey to Darragh, so it's hanging in DCU now. We always joke about not being failures, all that, we take the mick out of each other, but we use the jersey, you know? If it can give any of the lads encouragement, then brilliant.

" I feel I've worked very hard, but I've had so much luck. Everyone at Longford has looked after me brilliantly. Such a big family club, when you do anything they're all happy for you, really happy, makes you proud for the town and the club because you feel you're doing it for them - it's a kind of reward for how brilliant they are."

Dillon's enthusiasm for the tournament is infectious, but it hasn't quite spread across the water. Before the World Youth Cup was to be staged in March - only to be postponed because of the threat of war in Iraq - the England under-20 coach Les Reed asked David Moyes to release Wayne Rooney for the tournament. The Everton manager's response was plain enough: "the first word began with 'f', the second with 'o'," he said.

England, then, don't attach a great deal of significance to the tournament, as evidenced by their squad selection - the only recognisable names (for football anoraks) are Leeds's James Milner, Blackburn's James McEverley and Newcastle's Michael Chopra. No Rooney, though. And no Jermaine Jenas (Newcastle) or Jermaine Pennant (on loan at Leeds from Arsenal), both still eligible at this level.

Germany's the same - no Bundesliga professionals could be picked by under-20 coach Uli Stielike - while Argentina's Carlos Terez is going to court to allow him play for Boca Juniors after rejecting a call-up to his country's under-20 squad.

For Ireland, though, it's different, with memories of that bronze-medal finish in the 1997 tournament in Malaysia driving the current squad on.

"This is a great chance for us to make a name for ourselves," says Tottenham's Stephen Kelly, "but we've a lot to live up to when you think of what some of the youth teams have done in recent years. Our dream is to come close to their achievements - if we can match them, or even do better, then we'll be a happy squad.

"Everyone gets on great with everyone, we're friends as much as team-mates, have a laugh, work hard in training, we take that very seriously, but great craic back in the hotel. A lot of us have known each other since we were young," says the 20-year-old.

"We've been together a long time - we've grown up together, I suppose. If we could win a medal together, well, that would be something special."

The test starts today.