Stuart Armstrong has expressed his excitement about reuniting with Ryan Gauld on the field, a decade after they were piling their trade together at Dundee United.
Armstrong recently joined Vancouver Whitecaps on a two-year contract following his departure from Southampton this summer, bringing him back together with the club's captain, Gauld.
However, with Gauld included in the national squad for the upcoming UEFA Nations League matches against Poland and Portugal, the 32-year-old will have to wait a bit longer to connect with him in person.
The duo previously played alongside each other at Tannadice during Gauld's impressive rise, which eventually led to his notable transfer to Sporting Lisbon in 2014.
Armstrong represented Scotland at Euro 2024 earlier this year but was omitted from Steve Clarke's latest roster because he didn't have a club at the point of selection.
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"When Ryan first came into Dundee United he was so young, I was a little bit older than him, maybe three or four years," the former Celtic midfielder explained after pitching up in Canada.
“There was a group of really young guys who he was with. I always remember him being quite quiet but obviously on the pitch he was unbelievable, the brightest star at that time in the Scottish league.
“At that time he left for Sporting Lisbon relatively quickly so our time together was that short year.
“You keep in touch, sometimes see each other with Scotland but as time goes on and you’re at different clubs you drift apart.
“I’m looking forward to reconnecting with him, I’m sure he is a little bit louder these days.”
Another old teammate and fellow Scot was a big influence in Armstrong's decision to move his life over the Atlantic.
Gary Mackay-Steven spent 18-months at MLS side New York City FC a few years ago, and Armstrong made sure that he picked his brains before agreeing to join Vancouver this week.
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“The first awareness I had of Vancouver’s interest was from Gauldy and then obviously from Axel (Schuster - CEO), at which we talked at length about the club and the city, and the package as a whole," he told reporters during his unveiling.
"It then took some time for me to discuss with my own family and have some internal thoughts, obviously it's a big change in terms of my life and my family, and being far away from grandparents and everything. So, it took a bit of time from those initial conversations.
“A close friend, who I was with at Celtic and Dundee United, was Gary Mackay-Steven, who played for New York City.
“I called him up recently and grilled him about the MLS and asked him a million questions, just to get an idea of the league.
“It’s a big change in terms of my life and my family and being far away from grandparents and things like that.”
Vancouver chief executive Alex Schuster then elaborated on how the negotiations felt from his viewpoint.
"I felt that I was a bad negotiator when I met him," he joked. "I told him that he's the missing piece for us and how we feel about the him.
"I always say we don't want to sign the first one, we want to sign the right one. If you are completely convinced on something then you have to invest a lot and go all in.
"We actually didn't meet Stuart in Scotland, we met in France. I crashed his family vacation and we had a good evening in an Italian restaurant in France.
"I knew from the beginning that we had to give him the feeling that our door is wide open and every blocking stone - if there is one - we want to resolve. We want to show him that we are up for sorting all the problems that he maybe has with this move.
"I want to be very clear, there was no problem on the sporting side. I want to say thank you to his wife because they have a three-month-old kid. She is still working on her career and I had a feeling that I also had to convince her to this move.
"From the point when he called me and said, 'Yeah, I would be up for it.', that all went very quickly. The call until he jumped on the plane was like 24-hours maybe. That was the easiest part of all of it."
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