In 2002, a 17-year-old defender from Merseyside was merely hoping to convince people at Wigan Athletic that he was good enough to play football every day.
"I was just looking to get myself into the side at Wigan, to make a living out of football," he says. "That was the dream."
Sixteen years later and the left-back for Everton and England is being celebrated with a Premier League Milestone award, for making 400 appearances in the competition.
"The dreams of playing at the top level were there but I never really imagined it would become a reality," says Baines.
But what does the league’s all-time most creative defender, with 52 assists, put his success down to?
"I guess part of it comes down to your lifestyle, the things you do," he says. "There’s luck involved as well. You’re going to get some injuries but I never really had major setbacks at crucial times.
"And I was lucky with managers who believed in me and gave me an opportunity to play. Through good and bad times, they persisted with me and a lot of it comes down to things like that."
