Scotland may occupy second bottom spot in European qualifying Group F but Christophe Berra is clinging to the hope that they can still make the trip to the World Cup finals in Russia in the summer of 2018.
While the Scots appear to be long shots — they trail leaders England by six points and second-placed Slovenia by four — Berra is encouraged by the fact that six ties remain before the group is completed.
Berra won senior cap number 34 when he was recalled to the Scots’ starting line-up for the 3-0 defeat by England at Wembley a fortnight ago.
He said: "It was a great occasion, singing our national anthem. There’s no better feeling in your football career than playing for your country against your old rivals, so it was a good occasion and a good game to play in.
"Unfortunately, my family didn’t get down to watch it. I hadn’t been playing in the past and we weren’t told the team until the day of the game so they watched it on the telly.
"England had four chances and scored three goals, while we probably had four and scored none.
"It’s fine margins and that’s why their players are on hundreds of thousands of pounds a week and we’re not. That’s football — it can be a harsh game sometimes — and on the night Lady Luck wasn’t with us. We just have to move on.
"If you look at the table we’re on the back foot but we have four massive games at home and our next two are against teams we will be looking to beat and take maximum points from.
"If we do that, and especially if we win our games at home, we’ve got a right good chance of making the play-offs.
"England look as if they will take top spot, unless they crash and burn. It’s going to be tough for us and there are no easy games but we’ll be taking the positives from the game at Wembley.
"I think we played a bit differently, we were a bit more on the front foot and more direct sometimes. We closed our opponents down and made it difficult for them, so if we can play like that in our next games we might have a chance.”
The Scots have decided to stick with manager Gordon Strachan for the remainder of the group games and Berra revealed: "He said there wasn’t much more that we could have done. We gave it a good go and he’s been at Wembley in the past with teams that have lost 3-0 who have been absolutely pummelled.
"Apart from the last 10 or 15 minutes, when we were tired out and didn’t want to lose any more goals, it was a competitive game.
"All their goals were probably instinctive goals but with our chances the players had time to compose themselves before getting a finish off.”
With his 32nd birthday looming in January this could be Berra’s last opportunity to play in the final stages of the most prestigious competition of them all.
He added: "It’s any player’s dream to play for their country at a major tournament, especially a country like Scotland because we’re not there every second year.
"For all the big nations it’s virtually guaranteed but for the smaller nations it can be a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Hopefully we’ll do it but if not we’ll just get on with trying to qualify for the next one.”
Meanwhile, Berra commented on club boss Mick McCarthy’s recent assessment of him as "the best defender in the Championship” when he said: "I read that and my friends back home in Scotland put it on our group chat as well.
"They are nice words but personally I don’t get carried away with it. Especially when you are a defender, things can soon get tough so I don’t get carried away when things are going well and when things are not going so well I don’t get too downhearted. You’ve got to be level-headed, get on with it and do your job.”