Arfield set for first Scotland game at long last . . . but it’s for Canada
Burnley midfielder switched allegiances to play for North Americans and has come full circle to face country of birth
HE text message from interim Canada manager Mike Findlay was short and to the point. He had just finalised the arrangements for next month’s friendly with Scotland at Easter Road and wanted be the first to break the news to Scott Arfield that he would finally get to play a full international match on Scottish soil. “It was just two words,” the Burnley midfielder told Herald Sport. “’You’re Welcome’.”
Arfield’s first emotion was laughter – but then the 28-year-old has never been one to get too het up about the fact his talents as a footballer have never been deemed sufficient to guarantee him a game for the country of his birth. There are no Charlie Adam-style outbursts here, just a mature acceptance that despite 17 Under-21 appearances, one Scotland B cap under George Burley, and a couple of seasons now mixing it with the best the Premier League has to offer, Gordon Strachan always had other plans for his midfield. The first and last time the two men ever spoke was when Strachan called him up via SFA player-liaison Frank Reilly, as soon as his international clearance from Canada came through.
“Canada put the paperwork through for the change of nationality, and Frank Reilly from the SFA phoned,” Arfield told Herald Sport. “I am close with big Frank and he said the gaffer [Strachan] was in and he wanted a word. I just re-iterated that this was my decision, I knew he couldn’t guarantee me the first-team football that I was looking for at international level, and that was it, he wished me all the best and I wished him all the best. That was the first time I had ever spoken to him and I have still never met him face to face. But there are no bad intentions there whatsoever.”
Arfield had to settle for a seat in the stands the last time he visited Easter Road. That was in the October of 2010, when he was suspended for a breathless second leg of an Under-21 play-off against an Iceland side featuring Gylfi Sigurdsson and Aron Gunnarsson which ended in failure and included Chris Maguire scoring from the halfway line. It is a venue at which he has never got on the scoresheet – at least not yet. Arfield says he will have no issues celebrating if he notches his first full international goal in his seventh appearance for Canada in the country of his birth.
“It is going to be a brilliant occasion – I think I could fill the stadium myself!” said Arfield. “And at least I’m still getting to play in front of the Scotland fans. It is a friendly isn’t it? So I don’t know how full the Scotland fans will make it. But I would have no problems celebrating. Scoring a goal is one of the best feelings you get in football so if I manage to get on the scoresheet then I will definitely celebrate.”
While the seed of playing his international football for Canada rather than Scotland was always in the back of his mind somewhere – his Toronto-born father made sure to plant it – its germination had a rather accidental quality to it. Arfield was at a birthday party for his team-mate Sam Vokes when he piped up about his Canadian heritage. Quick as a flash, his former Canada international teammate David Edgar – then of Birmingham and now at Vancouver Whitecaps – contacted the Canadian FA and the rest was history.
“I remember we had the Monday off for big Vokesy’s birthday and had a few beers on the Sunday,” said Arfield. “I mentioned it to Eddy [Edgar] and he grabbed it. He texted the player liaison that night and it spiralled from there. They fast tracked the passport and clearance in time for the Mexico match in March.”
Surely there were some last minute second thoughts? “No, I was completely past that point by then,” said Arfield. “I never got caught up in that, thinking that I was better than anybody else. Even when I was playing at a good standard, scoring goals and setting up goals, playing nearly every week, I never got caught up in the ‘oh he should be playing, he shouldn’t be playing’. At the end of the day it is the manager’s decision and you fully respect that. He has got quality players and it is notorious that the midfield area is the toughest to play in that Scotland squad.”
Not all members of Arfield’s family in the Livingston area are quite so understanding. “They are all still in the area, they are all go to the same clubs and everything,” he said. “Nothing really changes in their lives so I don’t think they will ever understand that I have come down here, played against different people, and get to travel the world in pre-season and see different things. The Canada thing has opened my eyes. I get to go to places like