New coach Schmid has to pick a fresh captain

He may wear the captain’s armband on occasion for his club PEC Zwolle but rising star Ryan Thomas says he’s not ready to lead the All Whites on the international stage.

With Winston Reid injured and Chris Wood and Tommy Smith focusing on their club commitments, coach Fritz Schmid will be forced to pluck a new captain out of his inexperienced squad for New Zealand’s behind-closed-doors friendly against Canada tomorrow.

With so many new and returning faces – there are nine uncapped players in the squad – senior players Thomas, Michael Mcglinchey, Michael Boxall, Jeremy Brockie and Marco Rojas have stepped up to form a new leadership core, and the new captain will likely be chosen from within that group.

Of those five – the only players who took the field in the intercontinental playoff against Peru to return for Schmid’s first game in charge – Mcglinchey and Boxall loom as the most likely candidates to walk the team out onto the empty Pinatar Arena in Murcia, Spain – especially now that Thomas has shied away from the responsibility.

‘‘I’m not really thinking about that sort of stuff at this moment in my national team career. I’m still young and you don’t really see it that often with national teams around the world, so I’m sort of putting that out of my mind,’’ Thomas said.

Boxall said the new players, including his younger brother Nikko, have made a seamless transition into the squad and it was up to Thomas, Mcglinchey, Brockie, Rojas and himself to guide the way.

‘‘There’s such a large core of them in this squad they’re kind of like the dominant demographic. Everyone has settled in well and taken on what the staff have thrown at them,’’ he said.

Acknowledging that he is a player who usually lets his football do the talking, Rojas said he has spent much of the camp offering support to the newbies.

‘‘Obviously there’s a lot of new faces that we have to get to know, so we’re doing what we can to make them as comfortable as possible,’’ he said.