Around 30,000 Scotland fans are expected to travel to north London for the friendly against the five-time World Cup winners.

And Levein's squad will arrive in the capital today after a week at their La Manga training camp with all the players desperate to be handed a starting slot.

However, no-one is looking forward to the game more than former Scotland defender Levein, who admits to a long-held affection for Brazil.

"It's everyone's dream to play football for their country and after that I have been fortunate enough to be the Scotland manager," Levein told TalkSport.

"I don't know what it is about Brazil but there is just something magical about them.

"I remember as a kid getting our first colour television and looking at the strip on there and, from then on, I was almost in love with it."

While acknowledging the brilliance of Brazil over the years, Levein insists his side will not be looking to simply contain the multi-talented South Americans.

"If you take on the best teams in the world you have to be in a good place mentally to do that and the players are in that place just now," he said.

"The encouraging thing for me is that they are all playing very well for their clubs so their confidence is high.

"And I think we have found the system that suits the players we have got.

"That is important because as an international manager it sometimes takes a while to discover exactly which system is best for the players.

"We are not going to change that and worry too much about being overly defensive.

"I think we are in a better place now than we were eight or nine months ago so we will have a go and see what we can do."

Brazil have not lost in nine meetings with Scotland and few expect Levein's side to make a dent in that statistic in London.

However, the Scotland boss added: "You can't run away from it. You have to stretch yourself at times and see where you are and that's what this game is for, to see where we actually are.

"We played Spain last October and put on a fantastic show and arguably Brazil are of that standard. It is another test for us.

"It is a fairly daunting task. I think we have played them nine times and haven't managed to get a victory yet so there is a challenge for us."