Scott Arfield

[Markoaleks]

Scott A could have had his chance to play

fully on him IMo 

Unlike P Lafleur - he chose not to 

everything else is revisionist 

[Markoaleks]

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Markoaleks
Delete

[VinceA]

Bruh can this thread die already.

[Obinna]

6 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

And when you say "can't get around the park or be useful for 90 minutes" you are basically describing Hutchinson. We should have left him at home as well? Arfield is/was playing more and at a higher level than Hutchinson so your argument here that Scott would have been useless is pretty thin.

This was actually Galindo's argument if I am not mistaken. Personally, I would have taken Arfield if I had the power to do so.

My agreement with Galindo on this topic stops where his argument that Arfield wasn't good enough regardless begins. I am not convinced that has merit.

I do agree with him that Arfield has regressed. That's pretty easy to see, but I am still of the opinion that a 34 year old Arfield would have been better than bringing Liam Fraser who stayed on the bench.

The alleged dressing"problems" not withstanding, of course. 

[Obinna]

6 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

And when you say "can't get around the park or be useful for 90 minutes" you are basically describing Hutchinson. We should have left him at home as well? Arfield is/was playing more and at a higher level than Hutchinson so your argument here that Scott would have been useless is pretty thin.

This was actually Galindo's argument if I am not mistaken. Personally, I would have taken Arfield if I had the power to do so.

My agreement with Galindo on this topic stops where his argument that Arfield wasn't good enough regardless begins. I am not convinced that has merit.

I do agree with him that Arfield has regressed. That's pretty easy to see, but the argument that he can't last a full game doesn't really matter if you use him for the last 20 minutes when down a goal or two, a position we found ourselves in during every match. 

I am still of the opinion that a 34 year old Arfield would have been better than bringing Liam Fraser who stayed on the bench.

The alleged dressing"problems" not withstanding, of course. 

[Obinna]

6 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

And when you say "can't get around the park or be useful for 90 minutes" you are basically describing Hutchinson. We should have left him at home as well? Arfield is/was playing more and at a higher level than Hutchinson so your argument here that Scott would have been useless is pretty thin.

This was actually Galindo's argument if I am not mistaken. Personally, I would have taken Arfield if I had the power to do so.

My agreement with Galindo on this topic stops where his argument that Arfield wasn't good enough regardless begins. I am not convinced that has merit.

I do agree with him that Arfield has regressed. That's pretty easy to see, but the argument that he can't last a full game doesn't really matter if you use him for the last 20 minutes when down a goal or two, a position we found ourselves in during every match. 

I am still of the opinion that a 34 year old Arfield would have been better than bringing Liam Fraser who stayed on the bench.

The alleged dressing"problems" not withstanding, of course. 

[Obinna]

6 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

And when you say "can't get around the park or be useful for 90 minutes" you are basically describing Hutchinson. We should have left him at home as well? Arfield is/was playing more and at a higher level than Hutchinson so your argument here that Scott would have been useless is pretty thin.

This was actually Galindo's argument if I am not mistaken. Personally, I would have taken Arfield if I had the power to do so.

My agreement with Galindo on this topic stops where his argument that Arfield wasn't good enough regardless begins. I am not convinced that has merit.

I do agree with him that Arfield has regressed. That's pretty easy to see, but the argument that he can't last a full game doesn't really matter if you use him for the last 20 minutes when down a goal or two, a position we found ourselves in during every match. 

I am still of the opinion that a 34 year old Arfield would have been better than bringing Liam Fraser who stayed on the bench.

The alleged dressing"problems" not withstanding, of course. 

[Obinna]

6 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

And when you say "can't get around the park or be useful for 90 minutes" you are basically describing Hutchinson. We should have left him at home as well? Arfield is/was playing more and at a higher level than Hutchinson so your argument here that Scott would have been useless is pretty thin.

This was actually Galindo's argument if I am not mistaken. Personally, I would have taken Arfield if I had the power to do so.

My agreement with Galindo on this topic stops where his argument that Arfield wasn't good enough regardless begins. I am not convinced that has merit.

I do agree with him that Arfield has regressed. That's pretty easy to see, but the argument that he can't last a full game doesn't really matter if you use him for the last 20 minutes when down a goal or two, a position we found ourselves in during every match. 

I am still of the opinion that a 34 year old Arfield would have been better than bringing Liam Fraser who stayed on the bench.

The alleged dressing"problems" not withstanding, of course. 

[Obinna]

You can see how strongly I feel about this....

[Bigandy]

32 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

Arfield haters gonna hate, but Scott is getting minutes at a pretty high level and has always played well for Canada. a midfield 3 of Eustáquio, Arfield, and Oso/Hutch would have been very good for us I think. 

And when you say "can't get around the park or be useful for 90 minutes" you are basically describing Hutchinson. We should have left him at home as well? Arfield is/was playing more and at a higher level than Hutchinson so your argument here that Scott would have been useless is pretty thin.

If we are talking strictly about the game and not team dynamics/building a program/tactical preperation etc, Then i 100% agree.  

A line up of:
Johnson vitoria miller adekugbe/davies
staq hutch
Buchanan arfield davies/hoilett
david 

Looks filthy good for canada. I just cant support a player who is willing to abandon his teammates when they need him the most, while hes the captain of the team.  

Edited December 13, 2022 by Bigandy

[Kent]

On 12/12/2022 at 11:30 AM, jonovision said:

How many CONCACAF away games has he played, total, outside of Canada and the USA, if you had to guess? 

I am curious about the answer. Someone (jonovision?) later pointed out Arfield has only been to Central America once, but that feels incomplete. Is that the only away game he played? I'm looking this up.

Below are a list of countries that hosted games, with the opponents and competitions in brackets. NLQ = Nations League Qualifying. NL = Nations League. GC = Gold Cup. WCQ = World Cup Qualifying. F = Friendly.

Games Arfield played in
Canada (Mexico - WCQ, El Salvador - WCQ, USA - NL)
Austria (Azerbaijan - F, Uzbekistan - F)
Honduras (Honduras - WCQ)
Morocco (Mauritania - F)
Scotland (Scotland - F)
USA (French Guiana - GC, Costa Rica - GC, Honduras - GC, Jamaica - GC, El Salvador - F, US Virgin Islands - NLQ, Martinique - GC, Mexico - GC, Cuba - GC, Haiti - GC)

For games he is listed on Transfermarkt as "Not in squad"
Mexico (Mexico - WCQ)
Morocco (Morocco - F)
South Korea (South Korea - F)
Bermuda (Bermuda - F)
Canada (Curacao - F, Jamaica - F, Dominica - NLQ, French Guiana - NLQ, Cuba - NL)
St. Kitts and Nevis (St. Kitts and Nevis - NLQ)
Cayman Islands (Cuba - NL)

Does anybody know why he was in the squad for the home qualifier against Mexico but not the away qualifier against Mexico during the same window? Same thing happened with 2 friendlies in Morocco where he was at the first game but not at the second game. Transfermarkt lists him as not in the squad for those games, and when I checked on Canada Soccer's website they didn't seem to show the unused subs, so I'm not sure if he was just an unused sub in those 2 games?

He played the first Nations League qualifier, then he skipped the next 3, and the first 2 Nations League games that were against Cuba, then came to the games against USA. His transfermarkt page does make it look like he was picking which games to go to and which weren't worth his time.

[Kadenge]

59 minutes ago, Kent said:

I am curious about the answer. Someone (jonovision?) later pointed out Arfield has only been to Central America once, but that feels incomplete. Is that the only away game he played? I'm looking this up.

Below are a list of countries that hosted games, with the opponents and competitions in brackets. NLQ = Nations League Qualifying. NL = Nations League. GC = Gold Cup. WCQ = World Cup Qualifying. F = Friendly.

Games Arfield played in
Canada (Mexico - WCQ, El Salvador - WCQ, USA - NL)
Austria (Azerbaijan - F, Uzbekistan - F)
Honduras (Honduras - WCQ)
Morocco (Mauritania - F)
Scotland (Scotland - F)
USA (French Guiana - GC, Costa Rica - GC, Honduras - GC, Jamaica - GC, El Salvador - F, US Virgin Islands - NLQ, Martinique - GC, Mexico - GC, Cuba - GC, Haiti - GC)

For games he is listed on Transfermarkt as "Not in squad"
Mexico (Mexico - WCQ)
Morocco (Morocco - F)
South Korea (South Korea - F)
Bermuda (Bermuda - F)
Canada (Curacao - F, Jamaica - F, Dominica - NLQ, French Guiana - NLQ, Cuba - NL)
St. Kitts and Nevis (St. Kitts and Nevis - NLQ)
Cayman Islands (Cuba - NL)

Does anybody know why he was in the squad for the home qualifier against Mexico but not the away qualifier against Mexico during the same window? Same thing happened with 2 friendlies in Morocco where he was at the first game but not at the second game. Transfermarkt lists him as not in the squad for those games, and when I checked on Canada Soccer's website they didn't seem to show the unused subs, so I'm not sure if he was just an unused sub in those 2 games?

He played the first Nations League qualifier, then he skipped the next 3, and the first 2 Nations League games that were against Cuba, then came to the games against USA. His transfermarkt page does make it look like he was picking which games to go to and which weren't worth his time.

He was not on the squad for the away game v Mexico during 2018 WCQ 

[Bigandy]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

I am curious about the answer. Someone (jonovision?) later pointed out Arfield has only been to Central America once, but that feels incomplete. Is that the only away game he played? I'm looking this up.

Below are a list of countries that hosted games, with the opponents and competitions in brackets. NLQ = Nations League Qualifying. NL = Nations League. GC = Gold Cup. WCQ = World Cup Qualifying. F = Friendly.

Games Arfield played in
Canada (Mexico - WCQ, El Salvador - WCQ, USA - NL)
Austria (Azerbaijan - F, Uzbekistan - F)
Honduras (Honduras - WCQ)
Morocco (Mauritania - F)
Scotland (Scotland - F)
USA (French Guiana - GC, Costa Rica - GC, Honduras - GC, Jamaica - GC, El Salvador - F, US Virgin Islands - NLQ, Martinique - GC, Mexico - GC, Cuba - GC, Haiti - GC)

For games he is listed on Transfermarkt as "Not in squad"
Mexico (Mexico - WCQ)
Morocco (Morocco - F)
South Korea (South Korea - F)
Bermuda (Bermuda - F)
Canada (Curacao - F, Jamaica - F, Dominica - NLQ, French Guiana - NLQ, Cuba - NL)
St. Kitts and Nevis (St. Kitts and Nevis - NLQ)
Cayman Islands (Cuba - NL)

Does anybody know why he was in the squad for the home qualifier against Mexico but not the away qualifier against Mexico during the same window? Same thing happened with 2 friendlies in Morocco where he was at the first game but not at the second game. Transfermarkt lists him as not in the squad for those games, and when I checked on Canada Soccer's website they didn't seem to show the unused subs, so I'm not sure if he was just an unused sub in those 2 games?

He played the first Nations League qualifier, then he skipped the next 3, and the first 2 Nations League games that were against Cuba, then came to the games against USA. His transfermarkt page does make it look like he was picking which games to go to and which weren't worth his time.

https://canadasoccer.com/profile/?id=6727&teamId=#tab2

This is a link to all the games he played in for canada. Go to match by match at the bottom to see. 
Game Locations:
Canada -3
USA - 11
Morroco - 1 
Scotland - 1 
Hondorous - 1 
Austria - 2 

Type of games 
Friendly - 5
WCQ - 3
Gold Cup - 8
Nations league - 3 

I think its pretty complete that arfield is a very fairweather player. He has never played a friendly outside of europe/ morroco (which is so close that it may as well be europe). Most of his appearances are in the 2 gold cups. He has hardly played in Qualifying games. 

Takeaways:
-Arfield joined canada to play tournament soccer but never was interested in anything else. 
-Arfield avoided games in difficult locations. 
-Arfield avoided games he thought he was too good for. 

To answer the question - Arfield has only played once in concacaf in a game that wasnt in canada or USA.

Edit - He played 1 friendly in the USA. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Bigandy

[Shway]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

....He played the first Nations League qualifier, then he skipped the next 3, and the first 2 Nations League games that were against Cuba, then came to the games against USA. His transfermarkt page does make it look like he was picking which games to go to and which weren't worth his time.

The Arfield protagonist will find a reason or an excuse to why this was the case, and ignore these facts. 
One of our senior leaders didn't call him out on social media for no reason.  He clearly thought he was too good or better than "this"....

Bailed when we THOUGHT we needed him the most. 

[Bison44]

For those of you who like the stats.

Since Arfield joined Mar 2016 to 2019 (i cut it off there because 2020 was a wash with covid and we only played the 3 friendlies), Just a quick look at the established guys and how much they played over the 4 years (2016-19).  

Piette, 25, Hoilett 24, Borjan 22, ARFIELD 18, Oso, 18, Larin 17, Cava 14, Vittoria 14, Hutch 11.  

By end of 2019 guys on here are already saying he has lost a step and wondering how long he has left.  In 2020 Gerrard started beaking off about how Arfield (32 at the time) should/is retired from INT football (he's getting older/injuries etc etc), Scotty says hold on there babbalouie, but when things fired up in earnest in 2021 Arfield was out of the CMNT picture, Hoilett makes his "no cap" tweet and eventually Arfield finally says he is officially done in Jan 2022.  

Its funny how some are laying it all on Arfield and try and paint his CMNT time before that as some sort of lark that he didnt take seriously and that he thought he was too good for the team.  Thats not how I remember those 4 years.  A lot of this comes from Hoiletts tweet.  Hoilett who jerked us around for 4-5 years and only committed to Canada 6months before Arfield came on board.  Remember Arfield showed enough to be the Captain..and was under Herdman too I think eh? 

 

 

[Bigandy]

8 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

For those of you who like the stats.

Since Arfield joined Mar 2016 to 2019 (i cut it off there because 2020 was a wash with covid and we only played the 3 friendlies), Just a quick look at the established guys and how much they played over the 4 years (2016-19).  

Piette, 25, Hoilett 24, Borjan 22, ARFIELD 18, Oso, 18, Larin 17, Cava 14, Vittoria 14, Hutch 11.  

By end of 2019 guys on here are already saying he has lost a step and wondering how long he has left.  In 2020 Gerrard started beaking off about how Arfield (32 at the time) should/is retired from INT football (he's getting older/injuries etc etc), Scotty says hold on there babbalouie, but when things fired up in earnest in 2021 Arfield was out of the CMNT picture, Hoilett makes his "no cap" tweet and eventually Arfield finally says he is officially done in Jan 2022.  

Its funny how some are laying it all on Arfield and try and paint his CMNT time before that as some sort of lark that he didnt take seriously and that he thought he was too good for the team.  Thats not how I remember those 4 years.  A lot of this comes from Hoiletts tweet.  Hoilett who jerked us around for 4-5 years and only committed to Canada 6months before Arfield came on board.  Remember Arfield showed enough to be the Captain..and was under Herdman too I think eh? 

 

 

I don't quite get how your stats back up your point. 

I was saying that arfield is a fair weather player. If you look into those 18 caps, you certainly see a pattern of being available for the good matches and unavailable for the unfavourable ones. It's also not quite fair to only look at half of his time on the squad. He didnt make nay appearances after 2019 because thats when we started having away games instead of gold cup games and arfield suddenly became unavailable for the difficult matches. If you compare the stats from the time arfield joined the program to the day he retired, the stats will look much different. 

As for attacking hoillet as a way to defend arfield, that is  unfair. I see nothing wrong with hoilett not committing to canada until he was ready. Whatever his reasons are, its his right to not want to commit. However, the moment you commit to your country, theres expectations. Hoillet has gone above and beyond to fulfill these expectations. Arfield wants all the good and none of the bad so he has not fulfilled the expectations. his expectations are even higher as he was the captain. HUGE difference between the 2 players. 

[johnyb]

I was an advocate to bring Arfield back for the WC considering how short we were in the midfield due to injuries. He wasn't called, and we were a lesser opponent to our competition because of it. At this point I see no reason to ever call him back. He probably wouldn't even make our roster in 2026. Use Gold Cup and Nations League to prep our players for 2026. I appreciate his help to our program when we were at our near lowest point but time to move on.

[Kadenge]

54 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

For those of you who like the stats.

Since Arfield joined Mar 2016 to 2019 (i cut it off there because 2020 was a wash with covid and we only played the 3 friendlies), Just a quick look at the established guys and how much they played over the 4 years (2016-19).  

Piette, 25, Hoilett 24, Borjan 22, ARFIELD 18, Oso, 18, Larin 17, Cava 14, Vittoria 14, Hutch 11.  

By end of 2019 guys on here are already saying he has lost a step and wondering how long he has left.  In 2020 Gerrard started beaking off about how Arfield (32 at the time) should/is retired from INT football (he's getting older/injuries etc etc), Scotty says hold on there babbalouie, but when things fired up in earnest in 2021 Arfield was out of the CMNT picture, Hoilett makes his "no cap" tweet and eventually Arfield finally says he is officially done in Jan 2022.  

Its funny how some are laying it all on Arfield and try and paint his CMNT time before that as some sort of lark that he didnt take seriously and that he thought he was too good for the team.  Thats not how I remember those 4 years.  A lot of this comes from Hoiletts tweet.  Hoilett who jerked us around for 4-5 years and only committed to Canada 6months before Arfield came on board.  Remember Arfield showed enough to be the Captain..and was under Herdman too I think eh? 

 

 

Actually a lot of this comes from Herdman, Arfield and Gerrard.  These are the sequence of events as I recall them:

When Stevie G came out with "Scotty no longer has International duties"...do you think he just made that up? There was a conversation btw Scott and Gerrard. Unfortunately he didn't communicate that to Herdman who was blindsided. Scott later looked a bit sheepish when he was interviewed regarding his "International retirement" saying It's up to the Gaffer. Later on Herdman said that Scott told him he did not want to play vs minnows. Then there was 2021 GC (almost 2 yrs since his last game for Canada), when it was reported he had a "niggle" and would not be able to play. Scotty gave 100% when he put on the Canada shirt but as I said before his ties to our country were just not strong enough to make the sacrifices that the rest of the squad were prepared to make. It was his decision and I'm fine with that. Herdman, the players and Scotty have moved on and so do we. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Kadenge

[Kent]

3 hours ago, Kadenge said:

He was not on the squad for the away game v Mexico during 2018 WCQ 

Do you have any memory of why? It seems very weird that he would go to the first game in a camp, and then go home early. This was pre-COVID so it wasn't like there was some travel restriction preventing him from going to Mexico (persumably).

[Kadenge]

5 minutes ago, Kent said:

Do you have any memory of why? It seems very weird that he would go to the first game in a camp, and then go home early. This was pre-COVID so it wasn't like there was some travel restriction preventing him from going to Mexico (persumably).

injury apparently 

[Bigandy]

2 hours ago, Kadenge said:

injury apparently 

Seems interesting that he could finish off the game in Canada but somehow got injured between the recovery ice baths and the flight to mexico.... He must have been really bummed out to miss out on a trip to central america.

[Bison44]

3 hours ago, Bigandy said:

I don't quite get how your stats back up your point. 
As for attacking hoillet as a way to defend arfield, that is  unfair. 

I took the stats from the time he started until he was done when COVID stopped everything, so 2016-2019, plenty of guys didnt turn a wheel in 2020.  Compared that to the other regulars and came up with..over a 4 year period, he played a lot more than lets say Hutch did. And no one picks over when and where Hutch came and didnt come eh?  And I think that was his time on the squad...16-19, after Gerrards comments it was prob over for him in fall 2020.  The rift never got patched up and I wonder if he ever got called to a camp again?  But we'll prob never get the real story.  Although Hume sure doesnt hold much back about managers and team mates now that he is retired, HAHA.  

As for attacking Hoilett....ummm did he not waffle between 3 different countries, turning canada down, hinting he was interested in England, it went on for about 4 years. There were 100's of pages of it on here.  How is that an attack...you think its ok to wait until your 25 before you decide your CDN, thats cool, but its still what he did eh?   

 

[gator]

4 hours ago, Kadenge said:

. It was his decision and I'm fine with that. Herdman, the players and Scotty have moved on and so do we. 

Apparently not, it amuses me we can still be debating this, regardless of the circumstances for his exclusion no one will convince me we wouldn't have been a better squad in Qatar with Arfield especially with the midfield issues we had, I am trying hard to move on! 😀

[SthMelbRed]

20 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

I took the stats from the time he started until he was done when COVID stopped everything, so 2016-2019, plenty of guys didnt turn a wheel in 2020.  Compared that to the other regulars and came up with..over a 4 year period, he played a lot more than lets say Hutch did. And no one picks over when and where Hutch came and didnt come eh?  And I think that was his time on the squad...16-19, after Gerrards comments it was prob over for him in fall 2020.  The rift never got patched up and I wonder if he ever got called to a camp again?  But we'll prob never get the real story.  Although Hume sure doesnt hold much back about managers and team mates now that he is retired, HAHA.  

As for attacking Hoilett....ummm did he not waffle between 3 different countries, turning canada down, hinting he was interested in England, it went on for about 4 years. There were 100's of pages of it on here.  How is that an attack...you think its ok to wait until your 25 before you decide your CDN, thats cool, but its still what he did eh?   

 

Hutch gets a certain leeway based on who he is, and what he's done. He more than earned the right to chill for a couple of years between cycles to concentrate on club football at his age. Arfield, nor anybody else, at this point, has not earned that sort of leeway. Quit trying to compare the two. They are not the same.

[gator]

22 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

 

As for attacking Hoilett....ummm did he not waffle between 3 different countries, turning canada down, hinting he was interested in England, it went on for about 4 years. There were 100's of pages of it on here.  How is that an attack...you think its ok to wait until your 25 before you decide your CDN, thats cool, but its still what he did eh?   

 

Holiest strung us along for some time, the day he transferred to QPR Marc Bircham who was part of the management team told me he was "in his ear" already about playing for Canada and I figured his commitment was imminent, as you say it took years! I was as pissed off as anyone about JH's reluctance to play for us and was not alone, remember the flak he got for training with TFC? I was pleased when he finally did wear the maple leaf and think he has been a great asset as was Arfield, I just want our best team on the pitch!