By its football team shall you know a nation. Mick McCarthy's current Republic of Ireland squad is full of youthful insouciance and has the distinct whiff of new money. England repeatedly seek solace in the comfort blanket of the past because they don't like where they are in the present. Scotland, meanwhile, are uncertain and hesitant and are more interested in what people think about them than in what they can achieve themselves.

And Northern Ireland? They face into tomorrow night's friendly against world champions France at Windsor Park as a fairly disparate collection of journeymen under the guidance of an Englishman who has clearly seen better days. Efforts are being made to improve the outward sheen of the product but looming just below the surface is a barely suppressed undercurrent of nastiness.

This game against France is the latest salvo in the on-going attempts to pull the Northern Ireland football team back somewhere towards the mainstream. For the past 15 years the side has ambled through international competition registering the occasional encouraging result along the way, but generally finding itself firmly planted on the periphery. All this has been played out against a backdrop of general indifference as the atmosphere which has grown up around the team has alienated all but the entrenched die-hards.

Now the good people of the Northern Ireland Events Company have ridden in on a white charger to do what they can to help the ailing patient. Smart cookies that they are, the French retain all the broadcasting revenues generated by a friendly like this, so the game is only going ahead because of the intervention of the government-sponsored agency. Its role has become something of a feel-good troubleshooter and in recent times it has become involved in providing financial support for events like the British Seniors Golf Open at Royal Portrush. In its promotional pitch last week, the Events Company was doing its best to promote the friendly as a "family occasion". But amid all the positive noises, there was also nervousness in the presentation. Despite the brave stance taken by the Irish Football Association, sectarian singing and chanting were clearly audible at the game against Germany last spring and the Northern Ireland Events Company is risking damage by association if, as seems inevitable, the same tunes get their usual airing tomorrow night. The Company's representative, John Walker, went as far at to say there was "concern" at the possibility of negative publicity.

The interesting thing for seasoned Northern Ireland watchers is that issues like this are now getting an airing. For years there has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding the poisonous atmosphere at Northern Ireland games and any suggestions that this may be a problem for large sections of the community has been laughed off by lazy references to the great ecumenical experience that was Spain 1982.

This began to change earlier this year when the IFA stuck its head above the parapet and suggested that perhaps this was not the atmosphere it wanted around its international football team. The involvement of the Northern Ireland Events Company has now upped the ante because it brings with it a dangling financial carrot. In the past there was not any dynamic driving any changes and it was hardly surprising that the status quo prevailed. But if progress is now to be linked into the availability of government and private sector investment, we might move a lot quicker.

The sunshine, though, will take a long time to break through the clouds. The intermittent rumblings of discontent about Northern-born players declaring for the Republic are indications that all is not well in Northern Ireland soccer circles. The suspicion that team selection is geared more towards players from one community than the other may well be unfounded, but the significant thing is that this feeling exists.

The continued shabby treatment of young Sunderland goalkeeper Michael Ingham is a case in point. Ingham emerged on to the Cliftonville first team last season and impressed so much that Sunderland manager Peter Reid offered him a lucrative, full-time contract. Because he was finishing his secondary education, Ingham opted out of competitive football at the end of last season. Reid had no problem with this, but Northern Ireland showed less understanding of Ingham's withdrawal from an under-18 squad.

So when the Northern Ireland under-21 squad to play France tonight was announced last week, Ingham, despite being on the books of a Premiership club, was not considered worthy of one of the three goalkeepers' places. This prompted him to go public and restate his wish to play for his country, even after the way he had been treated. Only in Northern Ireland.

THERE is also a line of opinion abroad that the evolution of this Northern Ireland side is being hampered by the man in charge. Granted Lawrie McMenemy is not over-burdened with available talent - of the current crop only Michael Hughes and Neil Lennon could be described as genuine quality players.

But even with this considerable handicap, McMenemy's selections and decisions continue to mystify. Time and again he appears hamstrung by caution. Genuine young prospects like Norwich City's Phil Mulryne and Damian Johnson of Blackburn are consigned to the under-21 backwaters while the likes of Jim Whitley and Jon McCarthy glide effortlessly into the senior squad. And how the lumbering Iain Dowie continues to make the cut remains one of the great unresolved mysteries of late 20th century.

Dowie's survival is only one example of a stubborn streak in the way McMenemy goes about his business. Jim Magilton and Gerry Taggart have been out of favour for a while now for as yet undivulged reasons, despite the fact that Magilton's Ipswich Town are top of Division One and that Taggart is a regular fixture in Leicester City's Premiership defence. McMenemy has repeatedly said he is not for turning and Northern Ireland are a poorer side for his intransigence.

In many ways tomorrow night's friendly is a false test for the team and supporters. The World champions will roll into Belfast to put on a show and the feel-good factor will be talked up to such an extent that it will paper over the cracks. It would be nice to think that a glimpse of how international football could and should be would be enough to encourage the team and its supporters to move forward together. But it would probably be naive as well.