CHRISTOPHE Berra hopes to help the Tartan Army party like its 1999 against Slovakia at Hampden Park tonight.

While at least one goal will be required as Scotland chase the victory which will see our hopes of a first appearance at a major finals for 20 years roll over to Sunday evening in Ljubljana, the Hearts defender knows our chances of doing so would be greatly enhanced if he and his chums in the Scotland backline can become the first to record a third successive clean sheet in qualifying matches since Craig Brown’s group kept Estonia, Bosnia and Lithuania at bay en route to those agonising Euro 2000 play-off ties against England.

These were the days of David Weir, Christian Dailly and Colin Hendry.

While Berra is keen to point out that all the best teams start defending from the front, it is worth pointing out a further statistical quirk. Should they go on to achieve it, the entire back five who have kept the clean sheets, including goalkeeper Craig Gordon, will have been predominantly left-sided.

Logic at least suggests this may be an asset, considering most international players they come up against are statistically more likely to be right-footed.

“Obviously the last two games as a team we performed well, we scored goals and managed to keep the ball out of our net as well,” said Berra, who once again is likely to be partnered by Charlie Mulgrew, and flanked by Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson. “That is what we are planning to do tomorrow as well.

“Charlie is a good player, we all know that, obviously the back four has kept a few clean sheets, so the two of us get a bit of credit for that but it is all about the team,” he added. “People up at the top of the pitch put in the work too and it filters all the way down. The defenders were all left-sided in the previous two games, and that is the first time I can remember that.

“It might be a nervy game, but if we perform as we did against Lithuania and Malta we will give ourselves a right good chance.”

Berra, in line to win his 39th cap, and his 28th start, for his country, has been part of the international set-up for a decade. That is long enough to have tasted a fair share of disappointments when the chips are down at the business end of these qualification campaigns.

Most notable of these came in September 2011 at the height of the era of his current club boss Craig Levein, again against opponents from the former Czechoslovakia.

Losing a late penalty which never was – converted by Michal Kadlec, after Danny Wilson had been stitched up by Czech striker Jan Rezek – was bad enough. But things went from bad to worse when Berra had an even later penalty claim waved away by Dutch referee Kevin Blom.

“Someone mentioned the 2-2 with the Czech Republic to me the other day,” said Berra. “We could have had a penalty for myself in that one. And Danny Wilson supposedly gave a penalty away at the other end, which was never a penalty – I don’t think Danny touched the guy.

“It would have changed the outlook of the group if we had got the three points, which we probably should have. But like any football career, there are highs and lows. Sometimes in football, you are better being lucky than good. Hopefully we can have luck on our side tomorrow.”

Berra can be relied upon to put his head in harm’s way against a Slovakia side who scored all three of their goals in the win in Trnava last October from crosses.

“One thing I try and do is lead by example on the pitch,” he said. “I put my head in where it hurts and hopefully people follow from that.”