As career paths go, Scott Arfield’s mid-thirties detour to the USA was not the typical route for one of his contemporaries to take.
After coming up through the Falkirk youth ranks, the midfielder established himself in The Bairns’ first team before moving south of the border to sign for Huddersfield in 2010, where he would quickly become a regular and part of the side that won the League One playoffs.
Next up was a five-year spell at Burnley, where he would go on to play Premier League football, before he returned to Scotland with Rangers in 2018.
Arfield opens up on his MLS move
Arfield turned out 233 times for Rangers, scoring 43 goals and claiming Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup winners’ medals in 2021 and 2022 respectively, before his contract expired in 2023.
Then came something of a curveball as he joined Major League Soccer side Charlotte FC on a free transfer, with Arfield admitting to FourFourTwo that there was a significant difference between the MLS and the British leagues he was used to.
“I don’t mean this to be disrespectful, but I missed the ‘life-and-death’ intensity of the game in Europe,” he tells us. “Especially having come straight from one of the world’s biggest clubs. Ironically, it’s probably the most my wife and kids have ever enjoyed my football. It was a brilliant experience and I met some great people, but I was ready to escape.”
Former Aston Villa and Norwich City boss Dean Smith would arrive at Charlotte six months after Arfield and the pair soon struck up a good relationship.
“We’d often laugh like hell about some of the different terms for stuff,” he adds. “Dean would ask them why a full-back was called an ‘outside-back’. It sounds trivial, and we were in America, so it’s only right that we respected their culture and quirks, but it was amusing. Now I’m not there, Dean’s maybe gone all-in with the lingo.”
But perhaps the biggest draw for players heading over to the MLS is the opportunity to share a pitch with Lionel Messi, with Charlotte defeating an Inter Miami side featuring the Argentinian icon 1-0 in October 2023.
“His acceleration is just a joke. I can only imagine how tough it would have been 10 years ago. As for Sergio Busquets, he must have four eyes. He sees everything.
“It was so difficult to play against them, never mind in 50-degree heat with blond hair. I was burning up!”
