SCOTT Arfield has just received his first Canada call-up, but revealed he made a decision to pledge his national footballing allegiance to the Canucks 12 months ago.

After helping Burnley win promotion to the Premier League in 2013/14, and playing 37 games in the top flight, the Livingston-born midfielder was tipped to make his senior Scotland debut, having previously played at Under-19, Under-21 and B team level.

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But after being surprisingly overlooked by Gordon Strachan, Arfield turned to Canada in his quest for international football.

“It’s been a long time coming. It was a decision I made about a year ago,” said Arfield, who qualifies through his Toronto-born father.

“All through my Scotland U19, U21 and B team (career) it was always in the back of my mind that it was a choice I could have opted for. You play club football for so long, you want to be an international footballer and I thought for my career it would be best suited for Canada.”

Arfield could make his debut for Benito Floro’s side in the first of two World Cup qualifiers against Mexico in Vancouver’s BC Place Stadium on Friday.

And history is set to be made with more than 46,000 tickets sold, making it the largest crowd to watch a World Cup qualifier in Canada.

Arfield will then travel with the squad to Mexico City for the return fixture next Tuesday, at the Azteca Stadium.

“The qualifying is slightly different to Europe. You need to go through this group and into another six teams, so the first stage is to get through this phase,” Arfield explained.

“We play Mexico on Friday in Vancouver then we fly over to play in the Azteca on Tuesday night, so it’s a good opening and hopefully I can be involved.”

And Arfield revealed that former Burnley defender David Edgar had a hand in the process of him linking up with Canada.

“He’s been very instrumental in it, to be fair, as he was the link between the manager and myself,” said the 27-year-old.

“He’s Canadian through and through, so he’s very passionate and patriotic and I hope it’ll be a great experience for me.

“It’s not just football, it’s life experience. You can see things and go places you’re never going to go, so I’m hoping it will be a very positive step in my career.”

And Arfield has another big game to prepare for on his return, with leaders Burnley facing arguably their biggest game of the season at second-placed Brighton.

“They don’t come much bigger at this time of the season, so hopefully we can be fluid,” said the wide man.

“They like to play football and make the pitch big and play expansive football, so hopefully we can go down there and play our own game and be fluid.”

Frustrated with Saturday’s 1-1 home draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers, Arfield added: “You need to give Wolves a great deal of credit, they sat in and stopped us playing to our strengths and getting in pockets.

“It was extremely difficult to be as fluent as we can be.

“It’s very disappointing but we need to take the positives.

“We’re on a fantastic run and we need to keep it going.”