WHEN Borna Barisic joined up with the Croatian squad for an international double-header this month, you didn’t need to be one of the world’s greatest sleuths to detect what the general bletherings would be about.

“They were asking ‘how is the city?’, ‘how is the club?’ but everybody was asking ‘what did Steven Gerrard say?’,” said the Rangers defender of this fascination with the former Liverpool talisman that stretches to a vast array of global nooks and crannies.

Barisic is trying to make his own name, of course, and the 26-year-old, who was plucked from Osijek on a four year deal in August, continues to make strides. There are always one or two bumps in the road, though. A 1-1 draw with Portugal in the first of those aforementioned internationals was followed by a shuddering 6-0 walloping by Spain.

“I played the whole game [against Portugal] and everything is fine but 6-0 was not good,” he said with the kind of downbeat countenance that Les Dawson used to portray when opening a disappointing bank statement. “For the first 20 minutes we played good but then I don’t know what happened. We played individually not like a team. And it’s 6-0. The worst result in the history of Croatian football. That’s not good.”

Despite that grisly reversal, Barisic is confident his switch to Rangers can aid his push to become an international regular.

“Rangers already give me [a platform],” he said of his rising stature. “I played a good game against Portugal. The coach will choose who will play but I am ready. Everyone in Croatia wants to come to the international team to play with people like [Luka] Modric. We were second in the world. That is the challenge for everyone.

“I need to adapt to Scottish football. In Croatia, it is much more technical. There is much more aggression and speed here.”