THE perennial debate over who is the best footballer in the world has centred on just two players in recent times – Lionel Messi of Barcelona and Argentina and Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid and Portugal.

Yet, Gordon Strachan believes anyone with the good fortune to have acquired a ticket for the Euro 2016 qualifier between Scotland and Poland at Hampden this evening will be able to witness the eminent player on the planet in the flesh.

Robert Lewandowski, the Bayern Munich striker who will take to the field for the visitors, has scored 19 goals for his club and country this season and has struck on no fewer than 12 occasions in his last four matches.

The 27-year-old may not, despite his intimidating strike rate of late, be able to edge in front of either Messi or Ronaldo and win the Ballon d’Or come the end of the 2015/16 campaign.

However, Strachan, whose side somehow need to prevent Lewandowski from netting and either draw or win their penultimate Group D match to preserve their chances of progressing to the European Championship finals in France next summer, is convinced there is nobody better in the world game at the moment.

“Poland have a good side with a special player, that’s for sure,” he said. “It would be stupid of me to try to ignore it. You can say for the last five years that Messi and Ronaldo have been the best players in the world. I think he has been the best player in the world for the past month.

“And if you are the world’s best player even for a month or a week, it’s some accolade. I think most of us would want to be the world’s best player for a week. He has been a top, top, top, top player for the last four years. He can create a goal out of nothing. We can’t, at this moment in time.”

The presence of an on-form Lewandowski in the Poland team complicates he task facing Scotland enormously. However, they successfully nullified the considerable threat he posed when they last met in the 2-2 draw in Warsaw back in October. Strachan is confident they can do so once again and secure the result they require.

The centre forward has spent much of the build-up to this encounter bemoaning the treatment he felt he received in the Stadion Narodowy; he was subjected to a bruising challenge from Gordon Greer early on and failed to perform to his usual high standards thereafter.

Strachan, though, has dismissed the opposition player’s gripes. He believes that retaining possession and starving the lethal predator of service will help his side to win far more than adopting an overly physical approach.

“If we have the ball longer then the less chance they have of scoring goals,” he said. “That’s anybody in the Poland side, by the way. It’s about keeping the ball and using it in the right places. If you do lose it lose it in the right place.

“But I doubt very much if we’ll keep somebody completely quiet for the whole of the game. And you also don’t want to get obsessed with just the one guy because they have others who could do well.”

There will be as much interest in the man who Strachan fields up front for Scotland as there will be in who leads the line for Poland among the members of the Tartan Army in the 50,000-strong crowd this evening.

There has been an escalating clamour for Steven Fletcher, the Sunderland striker who netted just his second goal of the season on Saturday, to be dropped and Leigh Griffiths, the Celtic who took his personal tally for this term to 12 on Sunday, to start ahead of him.

The national manager, however, believes that Fletcher has been unfairly singled out for criticism from the media and supporters due to the defeats the national team has suffered in their last two competitive outings against Georgia and Germany last month.

“We were comfortable with Steven Fletcher and were really enjoying what he was doing when we were doing well,” he said. “It is only when he didn’t get a goal at Georgia that you start to think about him.

“It is amazing what can change how you look at someone because two games ago we weren’t really caring who scored a goal or who didn’t because we all just knew we were on a good road. It has all changed over the last two games because we didn’t make many chances against Georgia.”

Strachan, who is almost certain to bring Steven Naismith back into his side behind a lone striker in the 4-2-3-1 formation which he usually favours, explained that the game plan he decides on will determine which member of his squad he selects to play in attack.

“Where are we going to play the game?” he said. “Do we think we are going to be encamped in their box? Do we think they are going to be up another 30 yards? Will it be a counter attacking game where they come for you? You have to try and figure out how they are going to go?”

Strachan stopped short of saying whether he would name Fletcher or Griffiths, who he admires as a player greatly and, despite all of his well-documented on and off-field discretions, likes personally as an individual, in his starting line-up.

He stressed, though, that the former was playing his club football at a higher level than the latter, despite his involvement in the Champions League qualifying rounds and Europa League group stages, and would not be fazed by an international against Poland.

“Most Premier League players in England only ever go up a level three, four or five times when it comes to international games,” he said. “The rest is down the way.

“With the likes of Steven Fletcher, the level of defenders he’s playing against every week is Poland level, or maybe just down below that. He has the best centre halves in the world playing in the Premier League.”

Strachan is cognisant of the fact that his side is unable to field anybody who is rated at that level. He does not, however, believe that will prevent them from prevailing and keeping their hopes of reaching a major tournament finals for the first time since the World Cup in 1998 alive.

“I think we would agree that we do not have a Ronaldo, a Lewandowski or someone like that,” he said. “But we have good players, and, when you put them all together we have that world class player."