There won’t be any Rangers players on the Parkhead pitch tonight.
And there will be precious few Celtic ones, for that matter.
But Scotland captain Scott Brown accepted that this evening’s Euro 2016 Group D across-the-water derby will have an Old Firm intensity about it.
In his pre-match press conference, Brown did his level best to straight-bat the questions with references to the various sub-plots surrounding this most local of internationals.
A bigger game than those that have gone before Scott?
“Yes, but every game in these Euros now is big for us.”
The reception in store for Glasgow’s Irishman Aiden McGeady?
“Let’s keep it about football.”
Will Celtic Park make a difference?
“They’re all great stadiums, Ibrox as well.”
Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane?
“Martin did brilliant at Celtic and Roy is Roy. But it’s not really about them now.”
Whether it was under manager’s orders or just Scott Brown being Scott Brown, Strachan’s skipper appeared reluctant to elevate this match above the status of the other nine that will be played before the final places in the group are settled.
On the pitch the former Hibs man is notorious for cranking things up. Off it, on this occasion, he was playing things down.
But, the fiery midfielder who relishes the blood and thunder of an Old Firm match, couldn’t argue with a comparison being drawn between tonight’s contest and the Glasgow derby he’ll be re-acquainting himself with in a couple of months.
“Yeah. It’s definitely going to be like that,” the Fifer admitted. “They’re going to try to come for us in the first 10 or 15 minutes, especially at our ground.
“So it’s going to be tough. But both teams have got great players, great managers, and everyone knows what it’s going to be like.
“I think this will be different from a lot of international games. It’s going to start off at 110 miles an hour, especially with 60,000 fans getting behind us that great atmosphere will push us on.
“I think it’ll be great. If anyone has been there on Champions League nights, they will know what that extra 10 or twelve thousand can do to you, how it helps.
“As soon as they start singing when you go out there, it definitely helps.
“As a player, you need to handle that. You’ve just got to relax and not let the whole Scotland-Ireland, Rangers-Celtic, whatever it is, get to you. You have to focus on playing your own game.
“I have learned that over the years in these games. Everyone’s first one, you focus on trying to win the battle and stuff like that.
“But it’s a different occasion for us, playing the Republic of Ireland on home soil at Celtic Park.
“I think it is going to be about 95% Scotland fans and it is going to be a great atmosphere. Hopefully they will get behind us as they usually do.
“We’ve got players who’ve all been in big games before, who all know what it’s about.
“They’ll get the ball down and pass it, get it forward.”
From the first fixture in Dortmund, Strachan and his players have taken a long-term approach to this qualifying group, managing to not get caught up in the one-off hype of playing the world champions and now a home nations’ rival.
They want the game-to-game join to be stitching free.
“We just need to try and keep going the way we are going,” Brown noted.
“We’ve been playing quite well recently and we need to try and keep it as positive as possible, keep going forward, creating chances and see what we can do.
“The movement we have had up front has been good and hopefully we can keep that going too.
“This group is going to go all the way. We are taking every game as it comes but every one of them is a huge game. People say it doesn’t matter about Gibraltar but they are all important.
“We have got a strong team and I keep saying this but you look in that dressing room and you think any one of the squad could easily play.
“Training has been great this week and we have had 11 v 11, making subs and putting players on in positions and it has been going really well. A few players have come in and Stevie May has looked sharp.
“It has been good to see all the lads and know that you can trust them as well.”
If there is one word which defines this Scotland team it would be resilience.
“I think all good teams need to try to be like that,” Brown said. “You can’t beat yourself up when something goes wrong you have to push on and be positive, try to get back in it.
“Everyone in that dressing room works so hard and we believe that, if we do go a goal down, we can score a couple and get back on top.
“We’ve got the players who can do that, guys like Shaun Maloney and Ikechi Anya, who are scoring goals from nothing. From one or two attacks, we can score.
“It didn’t feel like that six or seven months ago. Now we’re creating those chances and putting them in the back of the net.
“The manager knows the way we want to play and we know what he asks of us, to keep going for 90 minutes and doing what he wants.
“We believe that, if we follow what he wants, we’ve got a great chance. We believe in the manager and he believes in us.”