Perhaps it is enough to say that for the 14 months spent as manager of JEF United Chiba in Japan, he is a little older and a little wiser, not so much in the ways of the game that has been central to his life since he moved from Clydebank Strollers to Rangers as a 15-year-old, but in understanding how it is expressed, how it adapts and reacts, in a different culture.

He left Liverpool in May last year after nine years of growing appreciation for his sharp insight into players’ strengths and weaknesses to seek out something personal. It is the response to that self-enquiry that all managers inherit, the one that says: how far can you truly go in this game? At Anfield, he rose from chief scout to first-team coach and his influence was vital to teams that won the Champions League, the Super Cup twice, the FA Cup twice, and the League Cup twice. But this authority of knowledge, of how to interpret the game and exploit that astuteness, was always in service, first to Gerard Houllier, then Rafa Benitez.

So when the opportunity arose to take control of his own side, to once again shape not just a group of players on the training ground but every aspect of their collaboration as a team, Miller could not resist. The fact that the job involved moving to the other side of the world, where not only the football environment would be different but the very fabric of the society, was an added attraction.

After 17 years at Rangers, Miller played his final games in Hong Kong, with South China, before embarking on his managerial career with Morton in 1983, and he has always lived with the notion of working abroad again.

“The driving force behind the decision to go to Japan was to test myself, to see what the pros and cons were of managing abroad,” he says. “It helps you to work with players who don’t understand your language, because you have to be concise and structure your training so that they are ready for the games. The players were very receptive and the J-League is a good standard, with very good technique, fitness and discipline.”

JEF United is the club where Pierre Littbarski and Lubo Moravcik wrung out the very last drops of their great talents, and where Koki Mizuno first developed his game before moving to Celtic, but Miller found a team denied any feeling of worth, sitting bottom of the league with no wins in 11 games. By applying the set of values so assiduously established in a managerial career that involved spells at St Mirren, Hibernian and Aberdeen, as well as assisting Craig Brown with Scotland, Miller embarked on a revival.

The team escaped relegation in the final game of the season, having been recast by a manager who believes that the fundamental requirements of football do not change with location. Miller appreciated the talent of his players, and their work ethic, but set about separating them a little from their passive natures.

“They’re very serious people,” he says. “If you say they are training for five hours, they will train for five hours and you don’t get a moan at all. I had to educate them that it’s not how long you spend on the training pitch, but the tempo and intensity. It’s a cultural thing, in the sense that they don’t want to lose face, so they never offer an opinion, in case they’re wrong. A British player would speak out, but [Japanese players] would never offer anything and that is the reason they don’t travel well, because they’re so subdued. The discipline is unbelievable.”

With an apartment just a short train ride away from the centre of Tokyo, regular visits from his wife and eventually the companionship of his son, Greg, who joined JEF United as a coach, Miller was not troubled by a sense of isolation. The club provided an interpreter and much of his free time was spent analysing opponents and sharpening his knowledge of the J-League. He believes that the leading teams, such as Urawa Reds and Kashima Antlers, would survive in the English Premiership and that the national team Scotland face in Yokohama on Saturday employ an array of talents that might rapidly dismantle the visitor’s self-esteem.

Miller identifies the pace and intelligently direct running of striker Shinki Okazaki, and the assured passing ability of midfielder Yasuhito Endo, as the most dangerous elements of a side that will attack with a focused intensity. The tendency of the likely centre-back pairing of Marcus Tulio Tanaka and Yuji Nakazawa to allow themselves to be dragged out of position is a weakness that Scotland can exploit, but the encounter will demand deep reserves of concentration and purpose.

“If Scotland allow Japan time on the ball, they won’t win the game,” Miller warns. “Scotland will have to play at a high tempo, because if they allow the two holding midfielders time on the ball, they will not get possession, because Japan move it about so quickly. And they’ll treat it very seriously.”

Miller is richer for the time he spent in Japan, even if he collided with that old truth that a manager is no more ruinously undermined than by his own board. Having asked for a striker to be signed, the one that arrived was “no good”, while four of the other five pre-season signings were not recommended by Miller. A new coach was also thrust upon him by the club and after 19 games of the new season, with a record of four wins and eight defeats, the tensions eventually told and Miller departed.

The intensity of the crowds and the country’s passion for football will remain with Miller, as well as one or two wry cultural observations.

“In offices, if the boss has a problem and doesn’t go home until it is resolved, everybody else sits and waits,” he says. “Nobody leaves until the boss is finished. That’s why when they go to the football, they let off steam, jumping up and down for the whole 90 minutes. And you can’t go shopping, the prices are three times what they are in the UK. I don’t understand how people are walking about with bags loaded with designer clothes.”

Having tidied up the loose ends of his life in Japan, Miller is now taking a break in Spain, waiting to return to the game that continues to sustain his vigour. At 60, he still carries the belief that what he knows of football, what he has seen and learned, will always be of relevance.

“The first year out there was good, but this year they were trying to mould me into Japanese, in the sense that they were trying to tell me when the team should train. That is a nonsense and I wasn’t prepared to do it. But I would have no reservations of going to another country again.”

Perhaps we can also say that the game will be better for Miller’s return.