The current crop of Republic of Ireland players are capable of qualifying for major tournaments - provided they play to their full potential and regain confidence, according to former Boys in Green defender Stephen Kelly.
Heimir Hallgrimsson's side beat Bulgaria 4-2 on aggregate in their UEFA Nations League promotion/relegation play-off to maintain their spot in second tier League B.
While that is no indication of future successes, especially after some difficult years and painful results, green shoots were apparent in some of the individual and collective displays over the last week.
For Kelly, one moment in last Thursday's first leg in Plovdiv when Josh Cullen showed vision with a wonderful ball for Matt Doherty's eventual headed winner highlighted that some players have sometimes played within themselves.
"All the players are capable of doing that, I think they really are. I think that's the thing about Irish football that I've found tough over the last few years is that I believe this team is better than what they're doing," he said on this week's RTÉ Soccer Podcast.
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"When you're on a panel and you've retired and you're watching football, I think if you're critiquing somebody (and) you're criticising them, you're doing it because you believe they can do more than what they've done.
"And it's not because you think they can't do it. I genuinely believe this team could qualify for us and they're better than what they're showing, and I think with the infrastructure around them being better, we're capable of doing more.
"But that belief has to come from within them as well."
Kelly also addressed Brian Kerr's critique about the June friendlies against Senegal and Luxembourg not being the ideal teams to prepare Ireland for the World Cup qualifiers.
Hungary and Armenia had long been nailed down as opponents in the four-team group for those qualifiers from September onwards but it was only last night that it was clarified that Portugal rather than Denmark would be the top seeds.
While Denmark would have been daunting opponents, Portugal will be expected to sweep all before them on the way to next summer's major tournament.
But for the three other members of the group, having one nation far ahead of the rest - on paper to be clear - could have an intriguing knock-on effect in terms of the battle for a second-place play-off.
"You don't want to say you want one team to run away with it - that's not the conversation you want to have as a player," said Kelly.
"But as a pundit now on the other side of it, you're going is it better for us for Portugal to just wipe the floor with everybody?
"It puts (other teams) in a position where we know by winning our other matches, we can come second.
"Is that advantageous? Of course that's advantageous but you have to feel like... every Irish team in the past that has qualified for something has always had a big scalp in the locker, that's been the difference.
"We've always had that one-off game or big game - and you need to if you want to qualify - so I think we have to go, 'You know what? Can we take Portugal?'
"Listen, on paper probably not but if we turn up and frustrate them and we're more confident going into it... but the way the group is worked out, the first few matches, that's perfect for us.
"I think the first two matches are games that are winnable for us. How many group stages have we got into where after the first few games, everyone's going 'it's over, we can't qualify now'.
"Whereas the way this works out now, we're in a position where we could go into (the first Portugal game) on six points and hopefully the confidence is high in the team and we do, and you go into Portugal and thinking, 'Let's go for it, let's get that big scalp', let's be one of those teams that's taken a big name and made ourselves look like we can qualify."
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