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Scottish Cup final: Aberdeen v Celtic
Venue: Hampden Park, Glasgow Date: Saturday, 24 May Kick-off: 15:00 BST
Coverage: Watch on BBC One Scotland, listen on BBC Radio Scotland & Sounds, live text commentary on the BBC Sport website & app
In outlining a case for Aberdeen upsetting the odds and winning the Scottish Cup final on Saturday - the Dons are friendless at 6-1 - Pittodrie midfielder Dante Polvara gave it his best shot, a kind of dribbler that veered off in the general direction of the corner flag.
No pressure and no expectation, said the Aberdeen man of his team's prospects against treble-chasing Celtic, a valiant attempt at turning their last four results against the champions into a positive.
The Dons have lost those games 5-1, 5-1, 1-0 and 6-0.
The element of a free hit, "some luck from the football Gods" and "you never know what could happen", the 24-year-old American said.
If Aberdeen were not in such lousy form then you might dare to dream on their behalf. As it is, with four defeats in a row on top of the psychological baggage of no win against Celtic in 30 games stretching back seven years, you have to wonder if miracles really come this big.
Rangers, but also Livingston, Ross County, St Mirren, Hibernian, Heart of Midlothian and Kilmarnock have all beaten Celtic at least twice since Aberdeen last did so.
It's a curious thing, this red-clad mental barrier. The aggregate score since their victory in 2018 is Celtic 79 Aberdeen 22.
So, in fairness to Dante and his hopes for a Celtic inferno, most people think they probably do know what's going to happen on Saturday, including many fatalistic Aberdeen supporters who are travelling in fantastic numbers but not, you suspect, with a whole lot of belief.
Polvara is looking to the heavens, but the God of the footballing underdog doesn't tend to show up on days like this. Scottish Cup finals have delivered two genuine shocks in more than half a century - Dundee United beating Rangers in 1994 and Aberdeen beating Celtic in 1970.
As Celtic manager, Brendan Rodgers has had 38 cup ties in domestic football and he has won 37 of them. Some have been landslides, others have been hairy.
They have conceded potentially morale-sapping equalisers in minutes 88 and 119 to go to penalties but have won both shoot-outs.
They won last season's Scottish Cup final with virtually the last kick, Adam Idah scoring. They won the 2017 final in similar fashion, Tom Rogic getting the winner against Aberdeen in the 92nd minute.
The only time the Gods have shined on Celtic's opponents in these knockout games against a Rodgers team was when Kilmarnock beat them in the League Cup last season. In all those cup-tie hours under Rodgers, they have trailed for a total of 130 minutes, scoring 133 and conceding 29.
The Celtic manager has never lost at Hampden.
How does Aberdeen counterpart Jimmy Thelin beat them? You are reminded of what Walter Smith once said before playing Juventus in the Champions League.
The then Rangers manager was asked how do you stop Alessandro del Piero? "With a gun," the great man replied, in full gallows humour mode.
Rodgers holds all the aces in terms of players and resources, but other clubs in other countries have similar dominance and yet do not hoover up all that Rodgers hoovers up. Occasionally, even the monied ones get caught.
None of the traditional Italian superpowers won the Coppa Italia this season. Lewis Ferguson's Bologna did. It was their first trophy in 51 years. The biggest guns in England got beaten to the FA Cup by Crystal Palace, the first major trophy in their 164-year history.
On Saturday, the German Cup final will not feature Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen or Borussia Dortmund. Stuttgart, ninth in the Bundesliga, will face Arminia Bielefeld, the champions of Bundesliga 3. Bielefeld have been around for 120 years and have never won one of the big trophies. Will the year of the underdog extend to the Dons?
One of Rodgers' great strengths - and one of Aberdeen's many challenges - is his ability to see complacency coming from a mile away. He constantly sets his players new targets to keep them on their toes.
The other day he was talking about them "etching their names into the concrete" of the club.
Many of them have already done that, of course, but as a piece of motivation, it works. It's a powerful image, a goal to chase. Outside Celtic, people will crave a change in narrative, a twist in the tale of what they see as boring Parkhead dominance.
No doubt, Rodgers uses that, too. Everybody is waiting for the Celtic manager and his team to fall flat, but they hardly ever do.
You could paper the length and breadth of the city's Union Street with the things that Aberdeen must do and other things that Celtic must not be allowed to do in order to cause an upset.
The impressive 2-2 draw they got in Glasgow in October seems like an eternity ago.
Since then, carnage. A dozen different Celtic goalscorers and an aggregate of 17-2. Daizen Maeda has scored five goals in three games against the Dons.
In Aberdeen's recent poor run, they've had the ruinous tendency to concede in clusters - two in seven minutes against Dundee United, three in nine minutes against Celtic and two in six minutes against Rangers.
The fact that Celtic score in clusters is a terrible danger for them. In domestic games, Rodgers' team have scored in the manner of a boxer landing lethal combinations.
They score and, when an opponent is still dazed, they score again and the job is done. On 20 different occasions, they have scored twice or three times in bursts of between two and 10 minutes. Aberdeen have been one of their main victims in that regard.
Dons fans will fear that this could be an early knockout. Thelin's Herculean job is to set his team up to frustrate and strike out when the moment arises. Resilience, concentration, discipline, ruthlessness.
Given that they are low on confidence and goal threat, high on defensive vulnerability, and of a questionable mentality, then he is looking to pull off one of the great cup final shocks of modern times.
If he can see it, he might be the only one. If he makes it happen then the victory will take its place in the dusty annals of Hampden giant-killing.
