Charlie Mulgrew is focused on national team matters during the international break but playing twice in 48 hours for club and country next week isn’t a concern to him.

Rovers boss Tony Mowbray contacted Scotland boss Alex McLeish about Mulgrew’s involvement in Tuesday’s friendly in Hungary 48 hours before his side host Bradford.

Mulgrew will captain Scotland in tonight’s friendly with Costa Rica in McLeish’s first match of his second spell in charge, before the Tartan Army head to Budapest for the second of their friendly double-header.

The 32-year-old will win cap number 33 this evening and wouldn’t rule himself out of Tuesday’s match, believing he can be available for both club and country next week.

“I’ll be doing everything I can for Scotland. When Tuesday’s finished and we get back here, then I can deal with Thursday night,” Mulgrew told the Evening Times.

“It’s still a long time – 36 hours before the next game. At centre-back, you don’t maybe do as much running as you would somewhere else.

“We’ll see what happens. My full focus is on Scotland at the moment.”

Mulgrew described being handed the armband as an ‘unexpected honour’.

And while he admits he had concerns over his involvement with the national team when Rovers were relegated to League One, he felt he ‘owed Blackburn something’.

He added: “Of course, I was concerned about Scotland.

“There were chances to maybe move on but I felt I owed Blackburn something.

“I was part of the squad which went down so I always wanted to stay and try and get them back to where the club should be. But there are obviously those doubts in your mind that it might not happen again.

“Every time I get called up I’m honoured. I never take it for granted. I only found out [about the captaincy] just before training, so it was a real honour for me. I didn’t have any inkling and I certainly wasn’t expecting it.

“When the manager told me, I was absolutely delighted. You grow up hoping to get the chance to play for Scotland.

“So, to be captain for a game is absolutely massive for myself and my family.

“I will just take it one game at a time. The manager just said I would be captain against Costa Rica. That’s as far as it went really.

“I don’t know if he is looking to build anything around me. He maybe looked at the amount of caps I have got and looked at the squad, and I have quite a lot in comparison to a lot of the other boys.

“There are a lot of captains in the changing room, a lot of leaders and hopefully we can get the right result.”