World Cup qualifying campaigns are a little bit different at the best of times.
It's the biggest tournament in the sport, and your earliest World Cup memory can tell you a lot about a person's age (Roberto Baggio's penalty anyone?).
This one is particularly peculiar in that it's only set to last 71 days, rather than the 15 month jobs of yesteryear.
For Dara O'Shea, it's an extra special campaign.
During the qualifying for the last World Cup, O'Shea suffered a fractured ankle playing against Portugal in Faro.
News of the Portuguese emerging out of the hat surely brought back memories of that night for the Ipswich Town defender.
But the almost six months out gave him a different perspective on soccer, and his place in it.
"Resilience is a massive thing in football," he told RTÉ Sport's Tony O'Donoghue ahead of this evening's game against Armenia.
"Everyone has setbacks and you have them at different parts of your career. I had a bad one there when I played against Portugal.
"It put me out for a long time and I missed a lot of games. I got myself back where I needed to be, so I'm proud of that.
"It was a really tough time. I think of how quickly my career started and how quickly I started playing for West Brom and then Ireland.
"Everything was on an upward slope and I hadn't really had any setbacks at all. When I got dealt that blow it was hard because everything just stopped.
"I'd been on the go for a year or two, playing constantly, and I'd not had time to really reflect on anything.
"The injury helped me to reflect and see how well I'd progressed but it also made me realise that there's so much more for me to do in my career, and so much more that I want to do.
"There's nothing worse than watching your team play on the TV, and especially watching your country play, and knowing you might have had a chance to take part in that."
Wouldn't we all like to be watching O'Shea, and his team-mates, on the biggest stage in north America next summer.
For there to be even a remote chance of that happening, three points is a must this evening.
The Armenians shipped five goals against Portugal at the weekend, but they'll be targeting Ireland at home as the game to take something from in this group.
And they did just that in June 2022, as Eduard Spertsyan scored a winner in the last 20 minutes of a Nations League clash.
The Jekyll and Hyde nature of Ireland's recent performances was on full display in Dublin on Saturday, as they threatened to hand the three points to Hungary before the break, before reverting to a bit more of the style of play that Ireland teams of the past would have been known for; a bit of physicality, and route one attacking.
It meant having to come from two down to earn a share of the spoils, with Adam Idah doing the needful in stoppage time.
Which Ireland will show up later remains to be seen, but O'Shea believes that they've learned lessons from the draw on Saturday.
"The confidence is there, first and foremost," he said.
"Coming off the back of a really good second half at the Aviva, we can take a lot into the game and hopefully start well.
"As a group, we've got to believe that we're going to go out there and win, and put a good performance in.
"There's going to be times in the game when things don't go our way and that's when we have to think about the bigger picture and stick to the way we want to play.
"We've enough quality in all areas of the pitch so we're going to have to use that as well. We want to try to get a clean sheet as a defence, that's massive.
"If you get a clean sheet, you've a great chance to win the game. It's hard enough to start at 0-0, never mind 1-0 down.
"That's going to be our mindset going into the game."
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Watch The Republic of Ireland play Armenia in World Cup qualifying from 4:30pm on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport. Listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra from 4:55pm.
