'To this day one of the best moments I've ever had' - Stephen Kelly and Richie Towell go down an Ireland youth nostalgia trip
This is a big year for the Republic of Ireland Under-17s. In November, they will feature at the World Cup where they have been drawn in an eclectic group alongside Panama, Uzbekistan and Paraguay.
Preparation for the tournament, which has been expanded to 48 teams and will be held in Qatar, revved up this month as Colin O'Brien's side took on the Under-18s from Norway, Turkey and Croatia in friendlies.
The first two of those ended in defeats (4-1 and 2-0 respectively) but on Monday, goals from Rory Finneran, Jaden Umeh and Shamrock Rovers striker Michael Noonan fired the Boys in Green to a 3-0 victory in Croatia to end the window on a high note.
There is plenty of talent in the squad, with the aforementioned trio as well as Noonan's Arsenal-linked Rovers team-mate Victor Ozhianvuna and Dundalk defender Vincent Leonard in the latest squad.
The one complication for head coach O'Brien to navigate in the autumn will be the fact that the tournament will fall outside of a FIFA window, which means clubs would not be obligated to release players.
The timing of the competition also coincides with the climax of the Irish domestic season and with youth very much to the fore, including at the leading clubs, there could be a dilemma or two.
However, former Shamrock Rovers and Dundalk midfielder Richie Towell, who represented Ireland at the Under-17 European Championships in 2008, is unequivocal about whether club or country should come first for the current crop of youngsters when it comes to the World Cup.
"The clubs have to let the players go," he said on this week's RTÉ Soccer Podcast as he and former Ireland senior and Tottenham Hotspur defender Stephen Kelly reminisced about their major tournament memories at underage level for the Boys in Green.
"As Stephen will tell you, for any Shamrock Rovers player to go and - no disrespect - to play against a Drogheda, or a Derry, or whoever it is for the last two or three games of the season, they need to go and play in a World Cup for Ireland. That's 100% more important. Most definitely."
Kelly recalled being in a similar boat in 2003 when Ireland had qualified for the FIFA World Youth Championships - equivalent to the modern day Under-20 World Cup.
Already on the books at Tottenham Hotspur, he was adamant that he would go the UAE to play alongside fellow future senior internationals like Stephen Elliott, Kevin Doyle, Glenn Whelan and Keith Fahey.
"The World Cup came around and it was played in Abu Dhabi, so it was played in October, so middle of the season and I was on loan at Watford in the Championship at the time from Spurs," he said.
"And they were like, 'You're not going (to the World Cup)'. And I'm like, 'I am going, I'm 100% going'. There's no way I'm missing out on this, to play at a World Cup.
"There was one player that didn't go, Sean Thornton. He was at Sunderland at the time and he said he was going to stay at his club.
"But for the rest of us, it was 'no chance, we're not missing this'. It's a World Cup and I never got to another one."
That Boys in Green side managed to top their group and get to the knockout stage in the UAE, with Kelly scoring the second goal in a 2-0 win over Mexico.
But beyond the results, it's the lifetime bonds that he has with those team-mates like Doyle, Whelan etc that remain most cherished.
"They were the best times. It was so much fun. It was just hilarious," he said, adding that the memories were sprung back again last Friday at the Aviva Stadium when he bumped into Ireland senior coach Paddy McCarthy, who was one of his defensive partners in the youth ranks.
"You have a special bond with them and you know them inside out. They're great times, they really are great times and you need to cherish them.
"And if you can grow together and move on together where you end up in the senior team, it does create a little bit of cohesion and a connection that helps the senior team because you understand each other."
While Kelly ended up playing 39 times for Ireland and also captained his country in a 2011 friendly against Uruguay, arguably his fondest memory in green dates back to his time in the Under-19s when he scored the winner against England at the 2002 European Championships, capping a comeback from 2-0 down against a side with numerous future Premier League stalwarts.
"It's still to this day one of the best moments I've ever had in football which is crazy because it's a youth level," he said.
"But we're Irish. Scoring a goal against England is like everything you dream of and I was in England at the time with Spurs.
"We were 2-0 and I remember at half-time, the team talk Brian Kerr gave us, it was like tears in the eyes. I can't actually say what he said because we'd probably get in trouble but tears in your eyes stuff.
"And the range of lunatics after half time, I'm not joking, it was unbelievable.
"(My goal) was edge of the box, ball dropped in, I got up a looping header and it lobbed the goalkeeper from the edge of the box. I don't know how it went in and we just went mental. It was unbelievable."
Towell, meanwhile, experienced the 2008 Euros for the Under-17s where he featured in a proverbial group of death against Switzerland and a Spain side which had Thiago Alcantara in it.
Similarly to Kelly, he found his time at the tournament in Turkey to be a bonding experience in a side with future senior internationals Robbie Brady - still going strong as the newly-crowned FAI Men's Player of the Year - Conor Hourihane and Galway United captain Greg Cunningham.
"You go away and you're playing with your mates. I knew all the lads that you mentioned. I'd known Robbie for years and years... Conor Clifford, players like this," he said.
"So to go and literally play with your mates and test yourself against the best players in the world at that time, at that age, it was absolutely incredible."
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