Scotland have no fear of doing a Brazil by getting a doing in Dortmund.
The world watched on in awe as Germany thumped seven goals past the host nation at the World Cup finals in the summer.
The Scots face the newly-crowned world champions on Sunday night but they won’t be standing back and admiring Joachim Low’s array of superstars.
Instead, there was a message of defiance from assistant boss Mark McGhee as the national squad met up at their Mar Hall training base in Renfrewshire ahead of the game at the Westfalenstadion.
As if the fixture being the opening qualifier for Euro 2016 weren’t enough, this will be the first competitive outing for Germany since they made history in the Maracana by beating Argentina in the World Cup final.
They deserved their 1-0 extra-time win that night against Lionel Messi and company but it was the 7-1 semi-final destruction of the Brazilians that will live longer in football’s folklore.
You get the feeling there will be a party atmosphere inside Borussia Dortmund’s ground as the home fans hail their heroes. It could be intimidating for the Scots but McGhee insists the players won’t be overwhelmed.
Instead, he stressed they will be striving to spoil the celebrations.
“It is important that any positive feeling we can create in the last year is not dissipated by one result,” said McGhee.
“So there is big, big pressure on us to go there and perform the same way we have been doing.
“We could play the best we have ever played in our lives and they (Germany) could play the worst and we might still not get a result. These things happen.
“Any result is difficult to predict in that sense. However, we should expect the same level of performance we have produced recently and then see what result we do get.
“Whatever the score is, it will affect the next match. There is no way we are giving up this game and saying that it doesn’t matter what happens in Germany because we have games in October and November.
“We are very serious about this match and we will be working hard to get something from it. Anything can happen, of course, but we don’t have any fear of going there and getting gubbed.”
McGhee also believes that Low’s men won’t be taking victory for granted against a Scotland side that has shown up well in away games.
“Germany won’t get ahead of themselves as far as playing us is concerned,” added McGhee. “They will be thinking about qualifying as early as they can by winning their games early in the campaign.
“Then they will think about the finals and worry about that. I think they will be hopeful of doing well and repeating what Spain did by winning the Euros after winning the World Cup.
“But I think in a one-off we can take inspiration from previous results we have had against the bigger nations, for example France.
“Even more recently, I remember coming up here to prior to the game in Croatia. The feeling I got from around the place was: ‘How many is going to be?’
“Maybe there was a reason for that given our previous performances and results but I didn’t feel that.
“In fact, I was quite positive about going there (the Scots won 1-0). It’s a little bit like that again. No one should have any fear of going to play Germany.”
The Scots have been forced to draft in Aberdeen defender Mark Reynolds just in case Ipswich’s Christophe Berra doesn’t recover from injury, while Celtic’s Charlie Mulgrew should arrive later this week despite not facing Dundee on Sunday.
McGhee said: “Christophe has undergone a little bit of treatment with his club so we are not 100% sure he is going to come. We are still reasonably optimistic he might do.
“But as a precaution we have brought in Mark Reynolds, who would have been on a shortlist of those who were unlucky not to make the squad anyway.
“So Mark is in and is happy to be here and we are delighted to have him here as a precaution. Apart from anything else we need the numbers to train.
“Charlie Mulgrew didn’t play for Celtic at the weekend but has declared there is no danger he won’t play if selected.
“We would expect him to train later in the week.”