Gareth McAuley knows all about important, high pressure matches with a lot riding on them.

They’ve come along at regular intervals during his career.

Back-to-back Irish Cup finals with Coleraine — beating Glentoran in the 2003 decider before losing to the east Belfast side 12 months later — a play-off final with Lincoln City and playing for Leicester City on the final day of the season as they fought for survival in the Championship.

Tomorrow night all those games will pale into insignificance in comparison to what is taking on the label of being the biggest match of his life.

Northern Ireland are standing on cusp of something really special. Qualification for the World Cup finals for only the fourth time in the country’s history and the first since 1986 — 24 years ago — when McAuley was aged just six.

Few people under the age of 30 — McAuley will chalk up his third decade in December — can recall Northern Ireland playing in a World Cup finals.

There is a buzz around the country, three points and taking over at the top of the group is the aim when Slovakia come to Windsor Park tomorrow evening and nothing else will do.

“This is probably the biggest game of my career,” said the Larne-man.

“It’s massive and there is no getting away from it. We’ve got to go and win and it’s not one that we’re nervous about, we can’t wait for it to come around.

“We don’t want to have any regrets and we’ve got to play like it’s our last game. We’ve got to go at them, close them down, press all over the pitch and try to get goals.

“The World Cup is within touching distance. We’ve two games left, two massive games and we’ve got to play them like they’re the last games of football we’ll ever play.

“We’ve got to go that extra yard because the prize at the end of it — qualifying for a major tournament — is a massive one.

“I don’t remember the World Cups from the 1980s, just what I’ve seen on television, the old games and things like that.”

It could all have been so different had McAuley acted on his instincts a couple of years ago. Just after Nigel Worthington took charge he was on the outside looking in, spending 90 minutes at a time on the bench and travelling around Europe without seeing any action on the pitch.

He was ready to walk away from the international stage, but the unavailability of Chris Baird for the European Championship qualifier in Sweden in October 2007 handed McAuley an opportunity that he grabbed with both hands and he’s been making the most of it since.

“I got disillusioned under Lawrie Sanchez for one reason or another and I didn’t really see a future for myself in the international team,” said McAuley.

“I went to Latvia and Iceland and didn’t play any part in the two games and at that point I was very frustrated.

“Nigel told me to keep going, keep doing what I was doing and when I did come out and say what I was feeling it just happened that within a few weeks the thing turned round, I played in a competitive game and it’s just gone on from there really.

“People keep on saying it’s a funny game and all the clichés, but one thing’s for sure, you never know what’s around the corner in this game and it can throw surprises up and a few spanners in the works.”

At that stage McAuley’s aim was to break up the partnership of Aaron Hughes and Stephen Craigan, but with the central defensive duo being arguably the strongest part of the team, neither he, Worthington or the fans wishes to see them parted again.

“Not while the results keep going,” said McAuley.

“They’ve got a great partnership, it’s working really well and it’s not about breaking the partnership up — although both myself and Jonny Evans would like to play centre-half — we can fill in around them and hopefully give our all and do a job.”