Vera Pauw says the Republic of Ireland can "change lives" if they make it to next summer's World Cup finals in Australian and New Zealand.
On the eve of arguably the women's team's biggest ever game, Pauw made no effort to play down its significance.
If the Girls in Green beat Scotland at Hampden Park, and either Iceland or Switzerland slip up in their play-offs against Portugal and Wales respectively, Ireland are going to the finals in Australia and New Zealand.
Victory would, at a minimum, guarantee them a spot at February's inter-confederation play-offs where they would be strongly fancied to prevail as one of the highest ranked teams there.
The brain-frying permutations are finally starting to come into focus. Simply put, there's no more room for error; Ireland will have to turn over a good Scotland side on their own patch to keep the dream alive.
'Ultimate goal of elite football is to inspire the next generation'
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) October 10, 2022
Vera Pauw and Katie McCabe hoping to beat Scotland and change lives
The match is live tomorrow night on @RTE2, @RTEplayer and @GameOn2FM #RTEsoccer pic.twitter.com/2nBmDfCCFU
"The ultimate goal of elite football, of international football, is to inspire the next generation," said Pauw.
"That's why we put so much money into a few players, but that is because of developing the whole game all over the world. If we succeed it would change lives."
Captain Katie McCabe stayed with the theme as she added: "For us it's about, obviously going to that first major tournament in our history and what it would do for football in Ireland would be massive. That’s what we want to do. We want to achieve that goal, but we want to also inspire young girls in Ireland, making sure they can dream and hopefully play for Ireland too.
"I’ve got my little sister [Lauryn] who is representing the Under-16s at the minute. We want to put ourselves in that limelight to show that they can achieve and play professional football, make major tournaments. Obviously, the focus will be on winning the game but if we win it, the knock-on effect of that would be massive.
"Ever since I got the captaincy… as a young kid I've always wanted to represent Ireland. To do it as captain, it fills me with pride each and every single time. It’s something I’ll never take for granted, leading the girls out. It will be an absolute pleasure to do it tomorrow night here at Hampden as well."
Ireland sat down together at their Castleknock Hotel base in Dublin to watch the Scots beat Austria in extra-time last Thursday in their first-round play-off tussle.
By the time the action starts at Hampden [8pm kick-off], both sides will know where they stand because the two other play-off matches begin at 6pm.
To rank the three play-off winners, group results plus the result of the second round of the play-offs are combined.
Once the points are tallied up, the top two qualify and the third-placed winner goes to New Zealand for the inter-confederation play-offs for one or two games, depending on a draw.
Pauw has previously aired her frustration at the staggered kick-off times, which she believes are unfair.
"The other teams will not be happy," Pauw admitted. "When I said it, I said it with my heart of sports development; fair play and fair competition. That was my remark.
"That we're now on the positive side does not take my remarks away, because I still find that those games should have been started at the same time.
"I have huge respect for what Scotland have achieved. It was not an easy game [against Austria] but they were the deserved winners, with a lot of dynamics and mobilities in the team, special qualities."
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