Dan Burn eyes World Cup after finally breaking into the England squad
The 32-year-old has taken the road less travelled to his boyhood club and international football, having suffered relegation from League Two with Darlington at the start of a career that has seen several setbacks.
Burn rose up the leagues and earned England recognition from new boss Thomas Tuchel, who selected the Blyth-born defender for the World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Latvia.
It means an immediate Wembley return for the toast of Newcastle, having helped end a 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy by opening the scoring in Sunday's 2-1 Carabao Cup final win against Liverpool.
'Definitely had worse weeks,' Burn said with a smile. 'It started off with the manager (Tuchel) FaceTiming me on Tuesday, saying that they were debating calling me up and he'd let me know by Thursday.
'Then it got to sort of six o'clock Thursday night and I'd not heard anything, so I said to my wife 'nothing's going to happen' then I got a text saying 'are you still awake?' at 10. I was like 'yeah' straightaway.
'He said I was very unprofessional for not being in bed for 10 o'clock!'
Burn said he told Tuchel he could offer just as much off the pitch as on it, with the towering defender arriving at St George's Park with unwavering belief.
'I'm not just coming in to sort of be a cheerleader and help the boys out,' he said. 'I want to play.
'I feel like I've got the ability to play at international level, and I've said it for a long time.'
Those chances have not been forthcoming in the past and it was understandable that Burn feared the England ship had sailed two months out from his 33rd birthday.
'There was a little bit of chatter around the World Cup in 2022 when I was playing left-back,' he said. 'I thought there might have been a chance there.
'But I felt it was hard, having never played any international football at all worked against us but also you can't gain international experience without getting called up, so it was a situation that wasn't ideal.
'I did genuinely think at 32 that it had probably passed me by but when a new manager came in, there was always that feeling of 'you never know'.'
Burn wants to grasp this opportunity, joking he will play right wing if needed, as the door to next summer's World Cup unexpectedly opened.
'I'd say last Monday it definitely wasn't on my radar but now it's got to be my ultimate aim,' he said. 'I feel like there are going to be a lot of steps I'm going to have to go through to get there.
'Being in that very first camp is important but I don't want to be here for no reason. I want to be here to improve and take my chances.'
Such excitement means he parked Carabao Cup celebrations to capitalise on his England chance.
'It was strange,' he said. 'As soon as I left the stadium, my focus had like completely switched to this.
'I had my family there and my kids, so we ended up getting on the bus back at about 12 o'clock to the hotel and it was getting a bit rowdy, and I was just ready to go to sleep!
'There will be time to celebrate. I know that the club has put stuff out about a parade on the Saturday when we get back, so I think that's when I'll celebrate.
'But at the moment I knew that I'd waited a long time for this opportunity, and I didn't want to spoil it.'
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