Northern Ireland's players have been told by Michael O'Neill they are facing a "formidable but not invincible" opponent in world champions Germany.
No team has ever recorded a home World Cup qualification win over Die Mannschaft in their entire history and Joachim Low's men just need a point in Belfast to ensure they are in Russia to defend the title they won in 2014.
The current side are familiar to O'Neill's players given they have faced them twice in the past 16 months, when 1-0 and 2-0 victories did not emphasise the German dominance.
Yet the Northern Ireland manager has attempted to convince his players that there are flaws that can be exposed in Low's team.
"Analysis is important because it's how it's interpreted - we've presented the Germans as a formidable opponent but not an invincible opponent," O'Neill said.
"I think Germany are the strongest team in Europe, arguably the world. The players they have coming into their squad seem to adapt to international football very quickly."
"An opponent that on any given night, there's an opportunity for us to try and find a way to win the game and certainly the players believe that.
"I think Germany are the strongest team in Europe, arguably the world. The players they have coming into their squad seem to adapt to international football very quickly.
"Germany have a very attacking approach - you have to then have weaknesses defensively, potentially. We've looked at how they've lost goals, maybe from overplaying at the back, lapses in concentration, little things that we have to look to exploit as well.
"We're under no illusion, we're not going to come in and suddenly have 60 per cent of the ball, there's no point preparing as if we are.
"We know the areas where we believe we can hurt Germany. It will need a massive performance and some fine individual moments to win the game."
Having already guaranteed second spot, and with it a likely play-off berth, some might consider this penultimate qualifier a 'free hit' for the Northern Irish.
Yet the story is more complicated than that. One of the nine runners-up miss out on the play-offs and the draw for that is based on world rankings, with Northern Ireland currently around the cut-off point for being seeded or not.
Little wonder then that O'Neill will not simply propose a gung-ho style.
"People say, 'Go and attack', if we do that we would get beat," he argued.
"We would get beaten because they have better players. We have to be realistic.
"The biggest thing is to set a team up that's difficult to beat. Players believe they can win from that platform."
O'Neill has prepared for this fixture by setting up training contests that have involved 10 players against six to mimic the type of possession he expects Germany to enjoy.
That sort of shrewd-thinking approach, which has taken his country from 129th to 20th in the world rankings, has not gone unnoticed by his counterpart Low.
"I think he's earned great merit for Northern Ireland," Low added of O'Neill.
"Northern Ireland were the positive surprise at the Euros, and even past the Euros.
"They have kept clean sheets in seven qualifiers, you only do that when you know what you're doing. Few teams in the world can switch so efficiently between man and space marking, it's really due to his coaching qualities."
Republic of Ireland v Moldova, live on RTÉ2, RTÉ Player and 2fm from 7pm, Live online blog www.rte.ie/sport
