“The boys have already booked up Seville,” he laughs down the phone. “That’s confidence for you.”
Dave Smith is on the other end of the line the day before Rangers take on RB Leipzig for a place in the Europa League Final.
The “boys” he refers to are members of the Dave Smith RSC in Fraserburgh.
When you have a supporters’ club named after you 50 years on from your heyday, it’s fair to say you must have been a hell of a player.
Dave Smith was.
He wasn’t as gregarious as John Greig, the man whose armband he wore on the night 50 years ago that most Rangers fans regard as their club’s best ever result, the one that paved the way for the European Cup Winners’ Cup to be lifted a month later.
Smith’s silky left foot was as instrumental to Rangers’ success as any of Willie Waddell’s players though.
Now, half a century on from the 2-0 semi-final win over Bayern Munich, the Aberdonian will look on from the stands tonight as this side try to follow in the footsteps of legends.
At 78, Smith still travels on the bus named after him. He is far more revered by the fans – who took him to Leipzig for the first leg – than the club he graced, it would seem.
“I’ve a season ticket but it’s through the Fraserburgh boys, not the club,” he says.
“They don’t have a lot to do with us but the lads on the Fraserburgh bus look after me well.
“They pick me up on the way to Ibrox and after only losing 1-0 in the first game – which we would have taken beforehand – we certainly have a chance.”
The Rangers legend has just written a book, “The Road To Barcelona”, chronicling the club’s 1972 success.
Even more memories will come flooding back tonight watching James Tavernier lead the side out against German opposition in a European semi-final, just as he did 50 years ago.
“John was injured for the second leg, so I knew I’d be the captain as I always stood in for him,” says Smith.
“We just had the usual build-up, going down to Largs as we did before every European game.
“As far as I was concerned, every game was the same.
"You were pulling on that blue jersey and, to me, every time I did that it was massive.
"Of course, looking back on it, some were bigger than others and the Bayern game was one of them.
“It gave us the opportunity to go on and do something no Rangers team has done before or after 1972, so it was special.
“But at the time I looked at it as just another game to be played against a very good team.
“What was a big thing for the four of us who had played in the 1967 Final – John, Sandy Jardine, Willie Johnston and me – and lost in extra-time to Bayern was the chance to play them again.
“They’d also beaten us 2-1 on aggregate in the Inter Cities Fairs Cup the year before, so there was a bit of history there.
“John played in the first leg and the 1-1 draw gave us a good chance, even though everyone outwith the Rangers support seemed to think the Germans would still go through.
"That’s not a surprise.
"They were full of world-class players and went on to win the European Cup three years in a row not long afterwards.
“Half of them became World Cup winners two years after we knocked them out.
"A lot of us felt this would be our last chance to make a European final, so we were fired up. We had to win.
“To be honest we felt we could win every game.
"That didn’t happen, obviously, but that belief was there. When you pulled on a Rangers jersey, you never thought you were going to get beat.
"We expected to win that night. We probably didn’t expect to win so easily.
“You might think 2-0 wasn’t easy but we broke Bayern that night and long before the end we knew we’d made the final.
“Beckenbauer, Gerd Muller and Sepp Maier started to argue among themselves at one point.
“Muller was a great goalscorer but he found himself moving further and further back down the pitch to try to get the ball.
“He was very frustrated. That suited us and we really enjoyed the match the longer it went on.
“Wee Bud (Johnston) even sat on the ball in the second half over on the terracing side, opposite the main stand.
"The crowd, which had been going nuts anyway, went absolutely mental when he did that. Bud said afterwards he was tired!
“Willie Waddell didn’t like it – at least publicly – but he probably privately enjoyed it as much as the rest of us did.
“There was a full month between the semi-final and the final. I wouldn’t say we spent the month thinking the final was a certainty but we knew Dynamo Moscow wouldn’t be any harder than Bayern Munich.
“We still had to turn up and perform. It was a one-off and anything could have happened.”
Smith also believes anything can happen tonight.
“I’m very hopeful but there is a wee doubt in my mind,” he says.
“Then again, that was there before the Dortmund game as well and we overcame them. They are a better team on paper and in the league than Leipzig, so who knows?
“My main worry is if there is a gap between our midfield and defence, they’re nippy enough to give our back four a hard time.
“They lost 3-1 on Monday and it looks like their best chance of Champions League next season is winning the Europa, so that’s extra motivation. Then again, Rangers are in the same boat in that respect.
“We won it in the club’s 100th year.
"It would be great for it to be won again in the 150th.
"We won it first and that will always be there for us.
"But I really want another team of Rangers players to experience that feeling and this one has a real chance."
However, who of the current team would Smith have wanted alongside him in ’72?
It’s hard to tell over a phone line but chances are there is a glint in his eye as he says: “None of them.
"There are good players in the Rangers team but I wouldn’t change any of my team-mates for anybody in the current squad.
"Not a chance.”
