A Scotland win - in a match being broadcast live across the BBC - over Belarus , combined with defeat for Greece in Denmark later on Sunday evening, would guarantee another play-off place and enhance the Scots' chances of getting to a first men's World Cup in 28 years.
Scotland finished second behind the Danes in the last campaign, losing only to the group winners, and could be heading for a showdown with the same opponents for automatic qualification in the final group game next month.
Clarke will manage his country for the 72nd time on Sunday, eclipsing the previous record mark set by Craig Brown, but that defeat by Ukraine remains a painful memory.
"It was on the back of what I felt was a really good campaign," Clarke recalled of a game in which victory would have set up a play-off final with Wales.
"Everybody forgets that game should have been played in March [it was rescheduled because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine], when we would have had more people fit.
"You get to the game in June and the build-up was very, very strange and we'd lost two or three key players - and it didn't go for us on the night.
"Disappointment, yes. Something we'd like to put right, yes.
"But also, when you've been in the game as long as me, you accept that there will be negative results and there will be difficult moments. That was certainly one of them because we felt that we had done enough in the qualifying campaign."