RANGERS defender Borna Barisic believes his outstanding form under Steven Gerrard has helped nail down a Croatia spot with the World Cup runners-up.
The left-back has enjoyed an excellent season and has turned around his performances from last term, when his Rangers future was up for debate. He just had his 27th birthday and can make it a double celebration by securing Croatia's Euro 2020 spot by beating Slovakia today.
And he reckons his form at Rangers have helped him become an automatic pick now for Zlatko Dalić's squad.
Barisic said: "It would be a great birthday present for me if we qualified for the Euros. I actually arrived here with a small injury - a bruised foot, but it's improved and I am okay to play.
READ MORE: Carlos Queiroz confident Alfredo Morelos can replicate his Rangers form for Colombia
"I never take my place for granted. I am ready and available to play and the final decision is up to the manager.
"I don't like to talk about myself, but all I can say is that I think I am having a really great season at Rangers. I have played all the matches and they have been every three or four days continuously for months and I feel great.
"In terms of my personal performances, I have provided a lot of assists and I've scored too.
"There's no doubt playing with Rangers at this level of consistency has helped me greatly with Croatia too."
And Barisic is looking forward to taking the shackles off against the Slovakians now that he doesn't have to face Gareth Bale again.
He said: "When we played Wales I couldn't get forward as much as I wanted because I was up against Gareth Bale and he only needs one chance to score, so I had to check my runs.
"But I certainly think I will get forward a lot more against Slovakia. And we are expecting another positive result."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article