Town defender Jason De Vos has admitted that his Canada career is almost certainly at an end. The 31-year-old says that head coach Frank Yallop now has to look to the younger generation of players to take Canada to a World Cup finals.
The former national captain cannot foresee himself lining up for his country again: "I don't think I'd ever come out and say I'm going to retire, but I can't see myself ever playing for Canada again.
"It's disappointing. I love playing for my country. My dream was never to play in England or play professionally or make a lot of money playing football, it was to play for my country.
"If we'd gotten through to the next stage, I'd still be playing for Canada because I'd sacrifice everything to try and get to the World Cup.
"As soon as we were eliminated I knew that that dream was over for me, that I had to deal with that and accept that.
"Frank Yallop was brilliant with me. We had a nice chat. He needs to go in another direction. He needs to give the guys who are going to be playing in 2010 and 2014 the experience. They aren't going to get it with me playing."
De Vos says that he is very much in need of a rest this summer: "Our fitness coach said, 'You played way too much football over the two years. You need a break, your body needs time to recover because of jet lag and various injuries. You're killing yourself.'
"From July onwards I played something like 55 games. It's a lot of football. I was really pleased to get through that without breaking down or suffering major injury. In hindsight I shouldn't have played with some injuries."
Early in the season De Vos played on despite having a blood clot on his thigh having previously continued while suffering with a hairline fracture to his toe.
De Vos won 49 caps for Canada, scoring four goals.