Poor Mick McCarthy. Even the professionals dream schoolboy dreams. They lay down a backing track of excited commentary to the cine-reel of their own heroic deeds. They dream like the rest of us: Sweet, extravagant dreams. They leave the Nou Camp carried shoulder high. They clamber through a sea of welcoming hands up the steps in lovely Wembley. They woo the Maracana, wow the San Siro, silence the press box.

In nobody's football dreams do the pivotal moments of an international managerial career take place in Skopje, Macedonia. Well perhaps those of the Macedonian manager, but why be picky.

Skopje is a friendly town which has known almost every burden except wealth. The last time an Irish side went there, blithely sporting those garish and cursed orange jerseys, Skopje had a furrowed brow. Too many bad neighbours had designs on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The sense of siege nourished an enthusiastic nationalism.

When the Irish travel this week one assumes things will be changed utterly. In ways, the worst has happened. Kosovo and not Macedonia took the impact of the latest Balkan derailment, but the experience of ushering so many trembling refugees over its borders to safety may have given the gentle Macedonians a different perspective on life and football.

Whatever the Macedonian mood, it seems unlikely that the hosts will pass up the chance for some innocent diversion. The pleasant memories of their first big football coup will inflate the Macedonians with confidence.

Ah. Their first big coup. Darker memories of that catastrophe will have squeezed the light out of Mick McCarthy's dreams. Gary Breen's timid performance. Jason McAteer's crazy indiscipline. The careless waste of a good start. Two penalties. Roy Keane never leaving his own half.

And finally the lowest circle of management hell, the post-match press conference held on the small stage of an adjacent nightclub. Conducted at first in a spirit of comradeship with no more probing question than the doltish "what did you think of the ref Mick?" it descended quickly into bitter farce as the Macedonian team danced onto the stage halfway through. Flashbulbs popped, fans surged into the room. There was cheering and singing. Mick McCarthy, seated and defeated, was trapped beneath them. Forced to either endure the sheer awkwardness of the moment or risk the possibility of offence he finally made his excuses and left.

We hacks followed him and he gave a second press conference out on the main stand. It was probably the most honest exchange he has had with the media in his years in the job.

If he'd had the result tattooed across his forehead, defeat couldn't have been more clearly etched on his face. He took the questions one by one, answering thoughtfully and quietly without the armour of defensiveness and sarcasm he brings to most press conferences. Not that the questions were hard. You don't often see a professional stripped naked.

This week Mick McCarthy goes back to Skopje and things are much changed. If that silly scoreless draw in the splendid valley in Liechtenstein became the emblem of the failures of the late Charlton era, so the wreckage of Macedonia came to symbolise the problems which beset the first chapter of the McCarthy era. Inexperience, indiscipline, rickety central defence and no forwards.

Mostly those were problems that came with the package. It was a transition time, an era which demanded a few gambles and a few improvisations. When they didn't come off, McCarthy got clobbered.

In quiet moments, he will sometimes reflect on the home games against Macedonia and Iceland early in that campaign. Against Macedonia at Lansdowne, Roy Keane was absent and McCarthy went for three in the middle, a decision which prompted a confetti of superlatives and one of the best-worked Irish goals of recent years when McLoughlin fed McAteer down through the middle and McAteer scored with aplomb.

The next month, still with no recognised central defence and still elated by the breakthrough success of the three-man central midfield, McCarthy tried what Alex Ferguson had often tried. He played the returning Roy Keane as central defender-cum-sweeper and left his midfield intact. To any reasonable person it seemed like a good idea. It backfired. The team and the manager has grown since then and this second campaign has so far not included any landmark disasters. With odd symmetry, Mick McCarthy goes back to Skopje this week with the chance to dictate how his international management career will be judged.

THE STAKES are high and he should gamble big. The calculated timidity of Zagreb was understandable in the context of taking six points from a possible nine during a grueling eight days, but in Skopje this week the algebra is different.

McCarthy enjoys away trips more than he relishes the fuss and clamour of home games. His record has improved in that regard too. The tricky tail end of the last European Championship campaign brought the digging out of wins in Rekjavik and Vilnius and a two act play-off wherein the away performance against Belgium deserved more than it got.

Ireland need to swagger a little in Skopje. Roy Keane is gone, but in Niall Quinn and Robbie Keane we have the most promising attacking partnership most of us can remember. Then there is the plus of Gary Kelly's return after lengthy injury and repeated instances of having his career graph being bent out of shape by journalists. There is the experience of Cunningham, the excellence of Irwin and the regained confidence of Mark Kennedy to draw on plus the possibility of Kevin Kilbane reprising his recent performance against Yugoslavia.

The bottom line of the professional game is that it's better to win a bad game then lose a good one. You can't argue with the economic rationale there, but the bad, scrappy affairs are the ones Ireland have difficulty with. We no longer have a team which can rest on the excellence of it's defence and in recent years when the chips were down, we have come closest to pulling off awayday coups when we played with adventure in Bucharest, Belgrade and Brussells.

This is a time to make no small plans. Mick McCarthy lays it on the line this week, samples the lonely pressure that none of us in the armchairs ever know. If he is to get the result which he deserves he must pick a team who float like butterflies and sting like bees. The old defensive rope-a-dope away game tactic is too tempting and too tricky. There will be drama. Lets have some romance too.