Scott Arfield has described being made captain of Canada as the pinnacle of his career.
The Rangers midfielder was handed the armband for the first time for Sunday’s record-breaking 8-0 victory over US Virgin Islands in Canada’s CONCACAF Nations League opener in Florida.
The 29-year-old turned in a man-of-the-match display as he led by example in the win and admits he is desperate to play his part in a new era for The Canucks, who now face Dominica in October before taking on St Kitts and Nevis and French Guiana in the competition.
The former Falkirk and Burnley player said: “When you get this, you don’t want to let this slip. This is the pinnacle of your career, in terms of being the captain of your country.
“I spoke to my dad in the airport when I knew I was going to be coming out of this camp as skipper.
“There’s only so much that a manager and staff can say and I think it holds just as much weight, sometimes more weight, if you’re on the field or training pitch.”
He added: “It was job done. We came out here to make history and we have done so.
“You can only beat what’s in front of you and it was a difficult game, in terms of stuffiness, and it was one where we’ll take the victory and everybody moves on.
“We’re obviously quite happy with the result.
"We wanted to make a statement that this is a new generation to take this forward, and the confidence is going to be buzzing for October now.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here