Defender happy with his lot

World Youth Championship: Being told on Tuesday morning by Gerry Smith he was in the team that night for the game against the Ivory Coast was, said Stephen Paisley, "special", but scoring Ireland's first equaliser, at a stage when they looked in danger of being overwhelmed, just about washed away the pain of what, he admitted, has been "a terrible time" in his young career, writes Mary Hannigan in Al-Ain, UAE.

And his face, as he turned away to celebrate, captured the story.

Like his team-mates Seán Dillon, Stephen Capper, Liam Kearney and Graham Ward (released by Aston Villa, Sunderland, Nottingham Forest and Wolves, respectively, this year) Paisley, a 20-year-old centre-half, received the dreaded summons to "see the manager" at Manchester City towards the end of last season, to be told by Kevin Keegan he wouldn't be offered a new contract.

"He'd said before that he was pretty happy with what I was doing, but he just decided in the end not to keep me on. I would have liked to stay in England, at a first division club, but my only options were to go lower-league or the Conference, so I just said I'd prefer to play in the eircom League, where the standard is at least as good as the English third division.

"I just didn't really see any benefits playing at that level in England, plus I'm doing a bit of studying, that was a big factor. I've gone back to do my Leaving Cert (which he'll sit next year), in the Institute of Education in Leeson Street. Doing four honours, two pass subjects, honours in biology, business, geography and can't even remember the other one," he laughs.

"When I went to England I didn't think I'd be back studying some day, left school (St Declan's in Cabra) after my Inter to go to City, but that's the way things go, you just have to get on with it. Everybody has to have something to fall back on, football is a very fragile sport at the minute, there's not a lot of money in it, I just thought to myself I needed a plan B in case things didn't work out. I'm not saying that that's the best thing for everyone, I just thought it was the best thing for me.

"I don't really know what I want to do after the Leaving, it's just a standard qualification you need to have. I said when I came back if I could combine the two for a year, football and study, I'd be very happy. If a chance came up to go back to England I'd look at it, if not I'd stay in the National League and go to college, do sports science or something like that."

Since joining Longford Town, injuries have not helped his efforts to nail down a first-team place at his new club. "I was very worried about not making the (Irish) squad because I hadn't been playing too much football recently, had a few injuries, things had been going against me, so I was relieved to get in in the end.

"Alan Matthews (Longford's manager) has been great for me, really helped me the last few months, my confidence was a little bit low coming back, you know the way, but he was great. I got injured in my first game for Longford, out for a month, then it was hard to get back in because we've a lot of centre-halves, it's a very good team. Hopefully at the start of next season I can stake a claim to one of the places."

Missed the FAI Cup final? "Yeah, but I didn't play in the matches to get Longford there, so I wasn't too disappointed. They gave me a medal but I gave it to one of the young lads at the club, he's been at Longford longer than me."

Despite being happy at Longford Paisley, originally from Clonsilla, his family later moving to Carpenterstown, admits he craves a second chance in England. "Definitely, I'd love to go back and play first-team football, it'd be very nice. I've been there, I know what it's all about, so I'd like to be given another chance to do it, although I'm very, very happy in the National League as well. Either way, we'll see.

"There are a lot of scouts at the games, maybe they might see something in me, fancy me as a player, you never know. But, whatever happens, Tuesday night made up for a lot in the last year. It means a lot to me playing for my country, this is a World Cup, you know? Feel very lucky. Really lucky."