The Scots go in to the glamour friendly against Brazil at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday on the back of 3-0 wins over both the Faroe Islands and Northern Ireland, and with the knowledge that they ran world champions Spain close in their 3-2 Euro 2012 qualifying defeat at Hampden last October.

The South Americans, though, have not lost in nine meetings with Scotland and few expect Levein’s side to make a dent in that statistic in London.

However, the Scotland boss believes the risk of undoing recent good work is worth taking, stating: "You have to stretch yourself at times and see where you are and that’s what this game is for, to see where we actually are.

"We played Spain last October and put on a fantastic show and arguably Brazil are of that standard. So it is another test for us. It is a fairly daunting task. I think we have played them nine times and haven’t managed to get a victory yet so there is a challenge for us."

He added: "I am looking for our guys to get confidence out of the game. It sounds a bit silly when playing the best team in the world but there is so many things that can happen in a football match that you can take confidence from.

"If you take on the best teams in the world you have to be in a good place mentally to do that and the players are in that place just now.

"The encouraging thing for me is that they are all playing very well for their clubs so their confidence is high. And I think we have found the system that suits the players we have got.

"That is important because as an international manager it sometimes takes a while to discover exactly which system is best for the players. We are not going to change that and worry too much about being overly-defensive.

"I think we are in a better place now than we were eight or nine months ago so we will have a go and see what we can do."