HE boasts a Premier League winners’ medal and has played in a Champions League final against Barcelona. He has won two senior caps for Brazil and was once a regular presence in the Manchester United back four. Tomorrow afternoon, though, if he lines up for Middlesbrough against Manchester City, Fabio da Silva readily accepts he will be playing in one of the biggest games of his career.

With four more matches to go, it is a case of now or never if Boro are going to clamber out of the relegation zone and safeguard their top-flight status. Wednesday’s derby win over Sunderland has provided a glimmer of hope, but there is still hardly any room for error despite the difficulty of the fixtures that remain.

Boro are currently six points adrift of safety, and the gap will rise to nine if Hull City win at Southampton this afternoon. Even if Hull lose, Boro will still find themselves further adrift when they kick off against Manchester City if Swansea City spring a surprise at Manchester United in tomorrow’s lunch-time kick-off.

The odds are firmly stacked against the Teessiders, but like the rest of his team-mates, Fabio is not about to throw in the towel.

He has spent the whole of his career engaged in a battle, first as a youngster from the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro trying to earn a youth contract at Fluminense, then as a teenager hoping to secure a lucrative move to Europe, and more latterly as a defender desperate to step out of the shadow cast by his twin brother Rafael, who is currently plying his trade with French side Lyon.

This time last season, Fabio was languishing in the lower reaches of the Championship with Cardiff City. His move to Middlesbrough has reignited his career, but if things do not go to plan in the next few weeks, he will find himself back in the second tier. Unsurprisingly, it is a switch he does not want to make.

“We all know what we want to do,” said Fabio, who came off the bench in Wednesday’s win over Sunderland and could well find himself back in the starting line-up tomorrow. “We have never lost the fight in that dressing room. Everyone is going to fight until the end, so that is important.

“We all have a role to play, and hopefully my experience will help. I’m nearly 27 years old now, and I have had great experience in the past, so of course that is going to help me in the fixtures coming up now. That’s going to be a plus for me.”

Boro’s collective experience of coping with the pressure at the end of last season should also be of benefit, even if the challenge of facing Manchester City is significantly different to the task of taking on Championship opposition.

City have not been firing on all cylinders recently, and performed relatively poorly in Thursday’s bore draw with Manchester United, but Pep Guardiola’s side still boast formidable firepower all over the field.

They also need to win tomorrow, with Thursday’s result having left them just a point ahead of their Mancunian rivals in the battle for a Champions League place, but for the first time since mid-December, Boro will at least be heading into the game on the back of a Premier League victory.

They might not have been particularly fluent as they beat Sunderland, but the game nevertheless witnessed a return of the spirit and commitment that enabled them to record a number of impressive results in the first half of the season. Chief among those, of course, was a 1-1 draw with Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.

“We have to believe,” said Fabio. “We are a group of players, and we are strong at heart. We have to believe. I know it’s going to be very hard, we have a very hard job to do, but we have to believe in ourselves and what we are capable of.”

Boro’s derby win enabled them to complete the double over Sunderland, and created a situation whereby the Black Cats can be relegated this afternoon if they lose to Bournemouth and Hull claim at least a point at Southampton.

The Teessiders are still in there fighting, and while relegation still looks by far the likeliest outcome, Fabio was delighted to see his team-mates keep their survival hopes alive.

“It was an important win, and it’s always good to win,” he said. “We hadn’t won for a long time, and there is a gap at the bottom of the table as well, so it was a good feeling.

“We have some difficult games left, but we just have to go on to the pitch and try to win every single game now. That starts when we play Man City.”