Kenny Miller joins a growing band of current and recent internationalists at Vancouver Whitecaps, and he has no plans on retiring from the national team now that he has moved to pastures new.
Miller is the current captain of Scotland and is looking to add to his 60 international caps and play an active role in Scotland’s World Cup qualifiers, which get underway in September.
Historically, when Scottish players make the move overseas, especially outside of Europe, they tend to get a little bit forgotten about by the Scotland manager.
A ten hour flight every few months could soon to start to take it’s toll on Miller, but for now he has no intention of stopping wearing the navy blue of Scotland, telling AFTN that he <i>"definitely"</i> still wants to be involved with the national team:
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<i>"Obviously there will be conversations to be had with the manager with regards to the travel, which will be a lot more from what it would be from just going from down south.
But I'm hoping to still play a part, a big part, in the World Cup campaign that's upcoming."</i>
Has he spoken to Scotland boss Craig Levein about the move to Vancouver and how it might affect his future international career?
<i>"We were wanting to get this all finalised and confirmed before I had that conversation.
But we have had a conversation with him already and he's quite happy for me to play it however I want to play it."</i>
As a Scot, this is very pleasing to hear. Miller has been consistently the guy that’s got goals for the national team and we need him firing on all cylinders if we are to make it out of a tough World Cup qualifying group A.
As a Whitecaps fan, this could be bad news.
Martin Rennie has added two current internationals in the past week, with Dane Richards still very much in the international plans of Jamaica.
Looking at the World Cup qualifiers for the remainder of this season, both players have potentially four games each that will take place during the Whitecaps' season.
Scotland have matches against Serbia and Macedonia at home in September and games away to Wales and Belgium in October, whilst Jamaica face the US home and away in September and then Guatemala away and Antigua and Barbuda at home in October.
At least none of the dates fall on days that the Whitecaps are scheduled to play, due to MLS finally starting to properly acknowledge the international calendar.
Scotland also have a home friendly against Australia in August and an away one in Luxemburg in November that I wouldn't expect Miller to fly home for.
If both Miller and Richards feature for their countries, and possibly even Barry Robson, Jay DeMerit and Darren Mattocks, this could leave the Caps short of manpower depending on travel situations, or at the very least with some tired players, for the important regular season run in and then the playoffs.
We asked Martin Rennie if this was something that concerned him?
<i>"No, not too much.
I think, obviously, all the clubs have got one or two international players and things like that.
We just have to manage it when that time comes.
I think having players of that quality you're going to maybe miss them occasionally here and there, but I don't think it's a major problem for us."</i>
It’s a bit of a double edged sword.
You want the players to perform to the max and impress. If they do, then they will be away on international duty.
As Rennie says, we need to cross this bridge when we come to it and hope that if there is time missed through tiredness or travel, the players that do need to come in rise to the occasion.
That’s why it’s important to see some squad rotation now. You can’t expect these guys to come in, play cold and be at the level we'll be looking for in what could be some crunch games.
For now, let's just enjoy the wealth of international talent and experience that the Caps currently have and see where they can take us.
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