What do we expect of the Republic of Ireland when they take on England at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday evening?
There's been dreamy talk all week of the good old days when Ireland would go into games against the old enemy legitimately believing they could prevail, but we've enjoyed a grand total of two victories in 17 meetings with the neighbours: a 2-0 win at Goodison Park in 1949, and the 1-0 success in Stuttgart at Euro 88.
Sorry Joxer, the gulf has arguably never been bigger.
It's nine years since the English came to Dublin. Seven of Ireland's starting lineup in that scoreless friendly were playing in the Premier League: Seamus Coleman (Everton), Marc Wilson (Stoke City), John O'Shea (Sunderland), Robbie Brady (Hull City, soon to join Norwich City), Glenn Whelan (Stoke City), James McCarthy (Everton) and Aiden McGeady (Everton).
Martin O'Neill was also able to bring on Shane Long (Southampton), James McClean (West Brom), Jon Walters (Stoke City), Shay Given (Stoke City) and Harry Arter (Bournemouth).
That's 12 Premier League players in total. Ireland's squad for the Saturday's showdown actually has 13, but not many could claim to be nailed-on starters.
The old stalwart Coleman (Everton), Matt Doherty (Wolves), Dara O'Shea (Ipswich Town), Chiedozie Ogbene (Ipswich Town), Sammie Szmodics (Ipswich Town), Nathan Collins (Brentford), Jake O'Brien (Everton), Andrew Omobamidele (Nottingham Forest), Will Smallbone (Southampton), Kasey McAteer (Leicester City), Evan Ferguson (Brighton and Hove Albion), Caoimhin Kelleher (Liverpool) and Mark Travers (Bournemouth) are the Premier League players Heimir Hallgrimsson has at his disposal.
Within that baker's dozen there's two back-up keepers, two centre-halves yet to play a minute in the league this season and a 19-year-old striker who hasn't featured since March.
Meanwhile England are weighed down with elite talent. Six of their players are on the list of nominees for this year's Ballon d'Or, and though three of them (Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer) are out of Saturday's game, the other three (Harry Kane, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka) will probably start.
Rice, in case you haven't heard, defected from Ireland after three senior appearances and has since gone on to establish himself as one of the best holding midfielders in Europe. Jack Grealish donned the green jersey at underage level; a £100m signing for Manchester City three years ago, he'll likely start on their bench.
Ten years ago Dan Ashworth, then the FA's director of elite development, unveiled a blueprint labelled 'England DNA'. The gist of his ambition was to establish a thread from the England men's and women’s development teams right through to the senior setups aimed at building technically excellent sides capable of challenging to win major tournaments.
Job done. The women's team won the Euros in 2022 and got to the 2023 World Cup final. The men have made it to the final of the last two Euros, and were in the quarters of the 2022 World Cup.
Ashworth's mantra was, "the only thing that changes is the size of the shirt". His vision has been realised, and was a major influence on FAI director of football Marc Canham when he drew up his Football Pathways Plan that was published last February. Even the language Canham used was similar, referencing "the Green Line" and "the Irish ID".
Of course the key to taking such ideologies and successfully putting them into practice is money - and lots of it. The FAI's request last year for €517m in government funding to drag the game off its knees in this country is just another illustration of how far we've fallen behind.
Could anyone blame Lee Carsley for turning down the FAI's advances when they came knocking?
Carsley has been embedded in a high-performing English FA system for too long to walk away lightly. Having led their Under-21s to the European Championship title in 2023, the 50-year-old always seemed likely to at least be in the conversation for the top job once Gareth Southgate's time came to an end. And so it's proved.
Carsley has described himself as "a safe pair of hands", and has shied away from emphatically declaring his interest in taking the job permanently, but it's obvious he's in with a shout.
The interim boss will oversee England's six-game Uefa Nations League campaign, starting at a sold-out Aviva Stadium.
Pass the audition - Eileen Gleeson style - and it'd be hard for the FA to look beyond him.
Pre-game, Lansdowne Road will be a lairy, partisan bear pit on Saturday. The optimists will take solace in the 1-0 loss to France in the Euro 2024 qualifiers. Only a ridiculous late save from the rubber-limbed Mike Maignan denied Ireland a share of the spoils on a night they got a lot of things right.
The presence of Hallgrimsson in the dugout is another crumb of comfort. He was joint-manager when Iceland dumped England out of Euro 2016 with a famous 2-1 win. A shell-shocked Roy Hodgson had no answers as his star-studded team disintegrated against the big, direct Icelanders who bypassed midfield and unashamedly catapulted long throws into the box.
The England DNA is a lot stronger now. Hallgrimsson and John O'Shea will do their best to make Ireland as compact and difficult to play against as possible, but if they come out of this with a win, we'll be echoing the gleeful screams of Icelandic TV commentator, Gummi Ben, who watched his country see out that triumph in Nice and declared: "I don't believe my own eyes. Never wake me up. Never wake me up from this dream!!!"
Watch Republic of Ireland v England in the UEFA Nations League on Saturday from 4pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.
