Manchester City’s Tomas Galvez keen to show skills when Finland face Northern Ireland in European qualifying

London-born Galvez, 18, made his senior debut for his mother’s home nation in a friendly against Sweden in January, but now has a chance to play his first competitive minutes at Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium.

“Tomorrow’s team meeting will clarify if I play or if I start, but I would love to play tomorrow and get my first (competitive) debut for Finland. Time will tell,” Galvez said.

Galvez, who moved to Manchester from Watford in 2021, describes himself as an attacking full-back, which will be music to the ears of City fans given left-back has been something of a problem position for Pep Guardiola’s side.

“I like to classify myself as an attacking full-back, I like to get forward, get passes in behind, but I do my defensive duties as well,” he said.

“I like to make tackles, one-on-one defending. I’m a tidy player on the ball I like to think. Hopefully I can show my qualities tomorrow if I play…

“I think I’ve had a good start to the season with (City’s) under-21s and we’ll see what happens (at club level).”

Galvez has been visiting Finland since childhood but, although he offered the opening line of the ‘Oh Finland’ chant in the local tongue, he admitted his language skills need some work. Even so, he was clear about the reasons for choosing to represent Finland.

“I’m half-Finnish, my mum is Finnish and I picked Finland as it’s just the best place for me to be right now,” he said. “I’ve been called up to the first team and that might not happen if I chose another nation, I don’t know.

“Regardless I’m happy to play for this country, making my mum and my family proud and I hope I can play well in the future for Finland.”

Galvez is one of a handful of younger players who have been brought into the Finland squad after their hopes of qualifying for next year’s finals were dashed by defeats against Slovenia and Kazakhstan last month.

Former Norwich striker Teemu Pukki was clear about the need to give an expected 28,000-strong crowd something to cheer.

“Last month was kind of a disaster for us,” said Pukki, who had a hand in Benjamin Kallman’s goal when Finland won 1-0 at Windsor Park in March.

“It was not what we expected and we need to bounce back from those games and give our best. We’ve had good preparation and we need to show the fans who’ve been supporting us really well and give them something back tomorrow.”

However, Finland’s preparations have not been without their problems as coach Markku Kanerva has been missing from camp after testing positive for Covid-19.

The 59-year-old is expected back on Friday, but his assistant Mika Nurmela admitted team meetings had been a little “weird” this week as they did their best to keep him in the loop remotely.

“We have gone through our preparation early enough so we know exactly what we are going to do in the training sessions, and obviously the videos we can look at those with the head coach even though he hasn’t been in the same room,” he said.

“He is involved but he hasn’t been with us. It’s weird but I don’t see too many problems.”