Jamie Reid has admitted he was not expecting to get a call-up from Northern Ireland this month after an injury-disrupted start to the season - but the Stevenage striker is excited by the chance to play his first game at Windsor Park.
The 30-year-old is a latecomer to international football, but made a dream start to life in Northern Ireland colours when he scored on his debut in the 1-1 draw against Romania in March.
Though he played in the next three games – all friendlies away from home – Reid is yet to play a competitive match for Northern Ireland after a blood clot sidelined him before the start of the season, and he only returned to action in the game against Lincoln City in the middle of last month.
Boss Michael O’Neill has wasted no time in bringing Reid back into the squad for Saturday’s Nations League match against Belarus in Hungary, and Tuesday’s meeting with Bulgaria at Windsor Park.
“I probably wasn’t expecting to come into this camp, but it just shows that the manager has a belief in me or they trust me a little bit,” Reid said.
“I was gutted I wasn’t in the last camp because it was obviously a home game [a 2-0 win over Luxembourg] and that’s something that I want to be involved in.
“Everyone’s spoken so highly about playing in Belfast and that’ll be a proud moment for me and my family. It’s a privilege to be here. I’m an experienced pro, but this is all very relatively new so it’s exciting.”
Reid scored just seven minutes into his international debut in Bucharest in March but knew making the step up to international football, particularly at this stage in his career, was never meant to be that easy.
“It’s been tough,” he said. “I’ve played against tough opponents. I’ve played four games and Romania, Scotland and Spain have been three of them so it’s been quite a tough start but I’ve enjoyed it.
“Obviously I haven’t had a lot of the ball but it’s been enjoyable.
“I don’t really think I approach it any differently to any other game. Just because they play for better clubs, obviously they are better players than in League One but I don’t approach it any differently than how I would playing Mansfield on a Saturday.
“I just do the best I can, listen to the manager, take that on board and go from there.”
Northern Ireland have taken big strides forward in the last 12 months but goals remain at a premium.
O’Neill has tried many different solutions – Reid among them – and this week has called uncapped ADO Den Haag striker Lee Bonis into the squad, with Ross County’s Ronan Hale a potential option once the formalities of his switch from the Republic of Ireland are complete.
“There’s some good players in the squad so you have to be on it,” Reid said of the increasing competition. “The more competition for places the better, as it gets everyone on their toes.”
After the win over Luxembourg, Northern Ireland suffered a 1-0 defeat in Bulgaria and go into these fixtures needing to get points on the board to remain in contention for promotion to League B.
“I think we want to put [the Bulgaria defeat] behind us and attack these two games positively,” Reid added.
“We’ve watched back some of the clips of the games to see what we can do better. I feel like that’s what we’ll do in the next two games is to try and improve on that.”
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