The 21-year-old, who has had an excellent season at Hillsborough on loan from Premier League outfit, Southampton, has been a standout performer for his nation since making his debut a couple of years ago, and will now get the chance to captain them for the third time having done so against Belarus and Luxembourg late last year.
It may only be a friendly against Sweden, but the Northern Irish will be hoping to build on their solid draw with Switzerland last week ahead of their World Cup qualifiers against teams like Germany and Slovakia later this year. Charles says that he can’t wait to get out there, adding that he hopes to be a bit more involved in this tie.
“I can’t wait for the Sweden game,” Charles said, as quoted by the Belfast Telegraph. “Even coming up to the camp you look forward to these games because it has been a while since we’ve been together and to come away from home and play in a great stadium we are looking forward to it.
“The other night I didn’t have too much of the ball. A lot of it was off the ball. Hopefully against Sweden I can try and get on the ball and affect the game a bit more…. The results speak for themselves. We’ve had our Nations League campaign which went well and another thing is to come away from home and win games. I feel we have done very well recently. We did alright in the last game and we have bits to work on but overall I feel we have been good.”
