{"id":912433,"date":"2026-06-13T13:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/mctominay-fit-and-firing-for-scotlands-world-cup-opener\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T13:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:13:14","slug":"mctominay-fit-and-firing-for-scotlands-world-cup-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/mctominay-fit-and-firing-for-scotlands-world-cup-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"McTominay fit and firing for Scotland\u2019s World Cup opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Soccer <\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Scott McTominay is set to be fit to feature for Scotland in their World Cup opener against Haiti.<\/p>\n<p>The Napoli star had been suffering with a stomach illness, and\u00a0travelled to Boston separately from the rest of Steve Clarke&#8217;s squad.<\/p>\n<p>However, McTominay took part in training on Friday and Clarke has confirmed the former Manchester United midfielder is good to go.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke said McTominay was\u00a0&#8220;perfect and ready to go&#8221;, but also stressed he does not want to be reliant on one player.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got 26 superstars here,&#8221; he said. &#8220;To try to put so much on to one person is not fair.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve built everything we&#8217;ve done over the last seven years on the squad, the team, everyone being together and playing their part at certain times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are delighted with Scott&#8217;s abilities and what he can bring to the team. But we are going to need another 15 to bring the same if we want to have a positive tournament.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"und\">Boston, MA <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/FIFAWorldCup?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#FIFAWorldCup<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FIFAWorldCup?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@FIFAWorldCup<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ss8Vlg3Mex\">pic.twitter.com\/ss8Vlg3Mex<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ScotlandNT\/status\/2065234371859083535?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Scotland are competing at the World Cup for the first time since 1998. They have never previously progressed beyond the group stage.<\/p>\n<p>After taking on Haiti, Scotland face Morocco and Brazil\u00a0in Group C, so Clarke&#8217;s team will be hoping for a strong start.<\/p>\n<p>Haiti are making their second appearance at a World Cup and their first since the 1974 edition.<\/p>\n<p>The 52-year-gap between Haiti&#8217;s first appearance (1974) and second appearance (2026) at the World Cup is the joint-fourth longest in the tournament&#8217;s history, behind Wales (64 years between 1958 and 2022), Egypt (56 years between 1934 and 1990) and Norway (56 years between 1938 and 1994).<\/p>\n<p>Among sides to play 10 games in World Cup qualifying, only Bermuda (31) and Nicaragua (16) conceded more goals than Haiti (13), as well as conceding the third-largest amount of expected goals (11.7).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Clarke, however, is not underestimating the threat Haiti could pose.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s important we respect the opposition, make sure we&#8217;re properly prepared, we play to the best of our ability and see what the result is,&#8221; Clarke said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve watched Haiti very closely, we respect their abilities on the pitch. Since they&#8217;ve qualified, they&#8217;ve improved the squad.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We think we know how they&#8217;ll play. We think we know their system. They have very dynamic players, especially the attacking players, so we have to be careful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.soccernews.com\/mctominay-fit-and-firing-for-scotlands-world-cup-opener\/400516\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a>SoccerNews Editorial Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Soccer Scott McTominay is set to be fit to feature for Scotland in their World Cup opener against Haiti. The Napoli star had been suffering with a stomach illness, and\u00a0travelled to Boston separately from the rest of Steve Clarke&#8217;s squad. However, McTominay took part in training on Friday and Clarke has confirmed the former Manchester [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":912434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2291,98590,2005],"tags":[12696,98589],"class_list":["post-912433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-firing","category-mctominay","category-soccer","tag-firing","tag-mctominay"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}