Steven Davis reaches another significant personal milestone tonight in what has been a fine career so far, for club and country.
Having recently signed new 12 month terms at Ibrox, the man from Cullybackey in County Antrim isn’t quite finished yet.
Tonight at Windsor Park, Davis has the honour of becoming the most capped British international after turning out for Northern Ireland 126 times.
In a must-win game against Bulgaria in Belfast, ‘Davo’ will hit cap 126 and he will want it to be a night to remember collectively by getting the three valuable points.
In the humble, grounded manner typical of Davis, he stated:
“We have to get back to winning ways and find a way to win the game,”
“It’s a big landmark for me personally but my focus is on the game.”
“We’re in the bubble but once I get back home I can mark it with the wife and kids, which will be nice,” he told Belfast Live, in relation to family and friends as well as fans, not being able to attend.
“We can’t wait to get the fans back in and we’re looking forward to getting then back.”
“We’ll just try to get a win and then in September they’ll be back and we can push on.”
The veteran Rangers playmaker is very likely to hit 130 caps and the uphill task, but enduring dream, is to lead his country to the World Cup in Qatar, next year.
That would be a fine way to end his international career but the team need to find a way to win.
Pressure
After 10 games for Ian Baraclough, he is yet to guide his team to a win, over 90 minutes.
His only success came in the penalty shoot-out Euro 2020 playoff game, away to Bosnia & Herzegovina.
The pressure is on, despite his mixed comments playing down that sentiment:
“That doesn’t bother me.”
“We have been asked to perform in one-off games before and over the years the pressure has been ramped up and there has been a similar expectation to win games.”
“More often than not, this group of players has come out on top.”
“As a group we put pressure on ourselves to win a game like this and put ourselves in a good position heading into the next qualifiers in the autumn.”
Northern Ireland v Bulgaria is live on Sky Sports, with a 7.45PM kick-off.
