Will Scotland’s luck hold for biggest test of World Cup dream?

World Cup qualifying Group C: Greece v Scotland

Venue: Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraeus Date: Saturday, 15 November Kick-off: 19:45 GMT

OK, Tartan Army, can you hear Lady Liberty calling you from New York Harbour, can you feel the rush of the Niagara Falls, can you almost taste the tequila in Guadalajara?

How close do you think you are to making it to the World Cup next summer – or can you not go there just yet? Too soon? Too much like tempting fate? Too good to be true?

We’re now in the endgame of Scotland’s group campaign. A draw or a win on Saturday against Greece in Piraeus – live on the BBC – and a win against Denmark (presuming they’ve already beaten Belarus) on Tuesday in Glasgow and it’s done.

Six men’s World Cups have come and gone without Scotland and, frankly, it’s beginning to get annoying.

Sixty-one different countries have played on football’s biggest stage since Scotland last featured, from North Korea to New Zealand, from Togo to Trinidad & Tobago. It’s time, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?

Consider Scotland’s last performance, a 2-1 home win against Belarus last month. Remember the things that were said in the aftermath of that dismal contest.

Andy Robertson: “It doesn’t feel like a win.”

Scott McKenna: “We let ourselves down.”

Scott McTominay: “We’ve got to be better than that.”

On and on they went. Honesty personified. It was stark and it was unusual and it was more impressive than anything we’d seen from them in the 90 minutes that went before.

You don’t normally hear such talk after a victory, but those comments kept coming.

Che Adams: “I think they [the fans] were right [to boo].”

Steve Clarke: “Really, really disappointed in my team.”

John McGinn: “At half-time, it was the wildest I’ve seen him [Clarke] in 72 games.”

McGinn followed up later on social media, referencing the pair of wins over Greece and Belarus.

“Two jobby performances, but six massive points,” he wrote. That just about summed it up.

So, in terms of the group table, Scotland are in a good place, but in terms of belief and psychology going into this pivotal double-header, Lord only knows where they are.

They have the safety net of a place in the play-offs next March, but that could be brutal terrain and it’s best avoided if they can help it.

We can speculate about Clarke’s formation – is it Craig Gordon in goal despite not playing a game all season; is it Ben Gannon-Doak despite playing limited minutes for Bournemouth; is it Che Adams or Lyndon Dykes, or Che Adams and Lyndon Dykes?

All of that is up for grabs and we’ll know it before kick-off.

It’s a campaign that’s flown by, beginning with a hugely credible, and largely unexpected, draw in Copenhagen in September. Scotland’s resilience was evident that night.

Angus Gunn had not played a club game since May. Lewis Ferguson had been an unused substitute in Bologna’s previous two games. Adams had been in and out at Torino. Dykes had started one game in six for Birmingham City. Aaron Hickey had played 77 minutes in almost two years before facing Denmark.

Scotland fans were almost hyperventilating when Grant Hanley was named in the team, but the Hibernian centre-back was terrific against Denmark, emblematic of a performance that was disciplined, dogged and occasionally threatening.

A point away from home – and a clean sheet – was an excellent beginning to a group that few saw Scotland surviving in.

They backed it up with a professional win over Belarus in a closed-doors game in Zalaegerszeg in Hungary. Two goals and another clean sheet.

Four points from six in a six-game group. Out of the blocks quickly in a section that is tantamount to a sprint.

Then everything became a little trippy in October. Against Greece at home, Scotland didn’t have an attempt on goal for an hour. Greece led and deserved to be leading by more.

Vangelis Pavlidis, their go-to striker, missed a sitter early on and then missed again and again. Greece weren’t in any danger and, lo, they were losing 3-1. “We were like a dazed boxer,” Dimitris Giannoulis, the Greek substitute, said.

Credit Scotland with the fight they showed in coming back from a grim place, but even in victory there were red flags all over the place and even more so when they stumbled across the line against Belarus a few days later.

Luck was on their side again. Belarus, who had already lost 5-1 to Greece and 6-0 to Denmark, had 22 attempts on goal to Scotland’s 12. McKenna said later that Belarus “probably looked more dangerous than us”, which was broadly true.

Out of character, Clarke went barmy at the break – and that’s the last time we saw his team. Booed off and slamming their own performance.

And yet, on an ugly night, that table looked handsome. It was hard to know what to think. And it still is.

There will be no Gunn and no Billy Gilmour on Saturday night. It’s been an uncomfortably long time since Scotland has seen the best of McGinn and McTominay, their twin totems, and Ryan Christie hasn’t started any of Bournemouth’s last five games.

Gannon-Doak has played 53 minutes of club football since the end of September – and he’s supposed to be Scotland’s fearless spark out wide. It’s hard to be fearless when you’re a bit-part player with your club.

To add to the heady mix of uncertainty, Greece are out of contention and their head coach, Ivan Jovanovic, is under pressure.

But this is Scotland they’re playing, the Scotland that sucker-punched them in Glasgow and destroyed their World Cup hopes in the process. If they have a bit of vengeance in mind then who would blame them?

In early autumn, every Scotland supporter would have bitten your hand if you’d offered them this scenario.