This promises to be his sort of game, one in which the p’s – passion, pride, power, pace – will mask the obvious lack of q for quality. “Or maybe not slaughtered, heavily criticised.” Brown’s future as Scotland coach will be in doubt if a qualifying campaign almost as patchy as England’s ends with nothing. Defeat for Keegan would not be job-threatening, but would condemn England to a year of international loitering.Keegan’s plausibility in the interview room has yet to be matched by his tactical appreciation on the pitch, though, to be fair, he would be the first to admit the failing. Just as well then that the proceedings at Hampden Park on Saturday afternoon and again four days later at Wembley will have the tempo of a Merseyside or Old Firm derby and the tactical sophistry of a demolition derby. In an era in which managerial values are measured more in medals and column inches than coaching expertise, he has earnt his respect the hard way.The draw has pitched these two into a grimly inevitable tango, and their camaraderie is prompted at least partly by a shared understanding of what will await the loser “I will get slaughtered,” said Keegan “I too will get slaughtered,” said Brown. A tabloid attempt to taint him with religious bigotry this year ended in predictable failure.

Quite simply, no one could believe it of such a patently decent man. Where Keegan is open and confident, Brown is more shy and studious. Keegan has arrived by way of a sunny smile and an impeccable playing record. He is a motivator not a coach, who profited from being everything that Glenn Hoddle was not: articulate, popular and mercifully free of wacky beliefs.Brown, though he did win a championship medal as a journeyman midfielder with Dundee, has a qualification in Physical Education and worked his way through the backrooms of the Scottish Football Association, coaching under-16, youth and under-21 sides before succeeding Andy Roxburgh as coach to the senior side six years ago. The England squad boasted far more international experience than his own, Brown added, just in case any absurd notions of equality should enter a perfectly imbalanced equation.Brown and Keegan make an odd couple.

They share height, dignity and position, but their route to the top job could not have been more varied. Not many rival coaches thrust into such an explosive engagement would agree to be interviewed jointly. Keegan played up his own lack of international coaching experience – “He’s been in the job six years, I’ve been in it six months, he’s had 36 games, I’ve had seven” – while Brown, in that impressively quiet way of his, countered that between them they had 63 international caps – “63 of them to Kevin”. As Keegan and Craig Brown, his opposite number, shuttled from room to room in the conference suite of a Heathrow hotel late last week, servicing different groups of journalists, they exuded nothing but mutual admiration and respect. Come back to me for a whinge, Andy, when you can put 28 goals on the international scoreboard. Creative tension, one of Keegan’s well- thumbed business management texts would doubtless term it, but the coach might legitimately muse that history ancient and modern will produce quite enough hostility without the additional burden of strife within his own camp.
The two coaches are doing their best to defuse any potential for conflict in the phony war.

“I know where you’re coming from,” he tells inquisitors, meaning he understands both the question and the headline which a slip of the tongue might generate in response. The luvvie side of the Keegan persona, the one which makes him the ideal New Labour football coach, was much in evidence last week. His handling of the potentially explosive confrontation between Alan Shearer and Andy Cole, a partnership which could yet take England into the first of the two play-off games in Glasgow on Saturday, displayed a masterly grasp of diplomacy. If Cole was not aware of the lie of the land before his “teacher’s pet” accusation against Shearer in his autobiography, he was after reading Keegan’s interpretation of the offending paragraphs. The England coach is clearly a disciple of Voltaire – “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” – but he was not about to be drawn into any compromise over the attributes of his No 1 striker and captain.