Scotty

Yeah they seem to have switched the official order for some reason but it’s all good. 2 games in Boston and then a trip to Miami is doable for the tartan army. They did the same thing in Toronto. Based on the draw, England should have been here but instead we get other games from that group with Panama instead. Germany V Ivory Coast though so that might be a cracker.

Mind numbingly cringy draw. A few interesting ties in there though. Canada opening in Toronto against potentially Italy (or NIR/WAL/BIH) has a certain section of the city buzzing. Toronto has a huge Italian diaspora (tapping into that population was why TFC signed Insigne and Bernadeschi in the first place) and they are stoked ... even though they have to negotiate NI then Wales or BH. There are also a lot of English in Toronto so the prospect that 2 of England's group games could be here and/or a last 32 match if they take the journalistic journey to the final that the English media are already predicting, has that population buzzing. Toronto has the smallest stadium so there is a possibility that the official fixtures might put them in the USA. I guess we will know in about 3 hours. Also, a lot of Croatians in Toronto (which is recognised as one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world) so if England -V- Croatia is here, expect both fireworks and lots of locally based fans too. I work with a Brazilian colleague, so our banter has already started ... got a WhatsApp from them just after the draw! Looks like that game will be June 24th in Atlanta or Miami so that's either a 70,000 stadium or 65,000 so maybe a chance to get a ticket :) The other games are on the east coast - New Jersey / Massachusetts / Pennsylvania so anyone flying into NEWARK (EWR) and basing themselves in New Jersey would be halfway between Philly and Boston, and close to Harrison. It's not a short set of journeys, but doable without flying. All are pretty big stadiums so again, more chance of a ticket than here in Toronto! ... finally, I am also going to find a use for the Panama top my wife brought back from trip there a few years ago :)

Go about 2/3 of the way down this page and you can select a team and see possible venues for all their games right up to the final: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/interactive/world-cup-2026-group-stage-draw-live/

So, unless they tweak it, it looks like BMO field in Toronto will have: June 12 - Canada -Vs - Italy/N.Ireland/Wales/Bosnia-Herzegovina June 17 - England Vs Croatia June 20 - Ivory Coast Vs Ecuador June 23 - England Vs Ghana June 26 - Senegal Vs Iraq/Bolivia/Suriname According to website I am looking at, Scotland games are Sat, Jun. 13 Haiti vs. Scotland Metlife Stadium, NJ Fri, Jun. 19 Scotland vs. Morocco Gillete Stadium, Foxboro Wed, Jun. 24 Scotland vs. Brazil Mercedes Benz Stadium, Atlanta Official fixtures to be published tomorrow.

of course, we got Brazil and Morocco after half a dozen skips ....

1.5 hours in and only now drawing the first team (Brazil). Super cringeworthy production so far !!!

FIFA so want to have Italy at this world cup !!! Nessun Dorma to start the draw? Tenuous Inverness connection though since Andrea Bocelli is singing it !

Lots of talk on Canadian TV that it would be great to have Scotland here in Toronto or in Vancouver. Not so much because of it being a possible win, but because of it meaning avoiding other UEFA teams in pot 4 and also having the tartan army in Canada. Does help that the co-panelists for the draw are regular TSN commentators/analysts Stevie Caldwell and Kevin Kilbane so plenty of deference to what Scotland have achieved so far :)

16 minutes to go until we find out who awaits ....

I hear what your saying, and you are probably right, but it does just get annoying (to me at least) ... although if it is to the benefit of your own team then I am sure we are all saying 'thank **** for that!" so it is still that double edged sword.

VAR is only as good as the officials. If you don't have strong officials on the park AND in the VAR room then you get the same inconsistency as you get without it. It should be a tool to assist the on-field decision not to replace it. For me, I can live with VAR. I have seen it benefit my teams and I have seen it penalise my teams - both correctly and incorrectly in my opinion but overall, I am slightly/cautiously positive to its effect. The one thing that bugs me more is the current offside stuff. I really can't see someone as offside because a nostril hair is further forward than the opposing player's right toe. Full body only IMHO. Yes, that will likely penalise and benefit my teams in the same way as VAR but if the ref cant reasonably be expected to call it on the field we probably should not be reviewing it.

My seasons are in "U-Sector" section 113 of that very same south stand. Its a toss-up to where I have been colder. BMO Field on the two MLS Cup Finals held there - in November (2016 and 2017) at around -15 or at the Caledonian Stadium in the deepest midwinter with the wind coming in off the Firth. Its a different kind of cold in each stadium, but when its cold, both can be bloody cold. In Canada it's a dry "holy s***" kind of cold because the negative number can be double digits whereas, as we all know, the Scottish cold might only be -1 or -2 but its that damp, get in your bones kind of cold. I'll cover the renovations in the one of the next entries in the blog since you are interested, as well as future posts about my volunteer interview, the ridiculous MLS fixture list for next year due to the world cup, and the proposals for league adjustments in 2027. Lots to come :)

How did the linesman not see that ... I could see that all the way over here in Toronto 😜

Step up Sandy Sutherland :)

Not sure why, but got a few comments in the office about my new desktop background .. normally it is something tropical or beachy .... Also - ahead of the next blog entry, I think this image taken last Friday at my FIFA volunteer meeting might have relevance in this thread. More in the blog later on :)

Stevie Nicol at 2:26 on this video is spot on for me.

Some sober reflection this morning. There may or may not have been a slip of the hand last night with some Highland Park in the glass before that was then washed down with some Irn Bru as a palette cleanser but it had to be done :) 28 years! 28 feckin years! Normally we find new ways to lose or miss the mark, but not this time, no not this time, we only went and did it the feckin easy way! Direct qualification to the World Cup in 2026. Despite playing some ugly ugly football at times and getting some probably undeserved results (and a helping hand from Belarus last weekend), we will now go to the world cup again. A world cup we qualified for in 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, and 1998. A world cup we missed out on in 1994 in USA as well as all the ones so far in the 2000s. A world cup that could see Scotland in my own back yard, or at the other end of the continent, further away from me than Hampden Park! (Don't underestimate the geography if you are starting to plan a world cup adventure). Congratulations to the lads, you have made millions of folk happy this morning all over the world. Obviously a lot of Scotland is waking up with fuzzy heads this morning, but in far flung corners of the world you also have people walking just that little taller and wearing a smile. My own son came home from school yesterday afternoon and tried to help me find a feed for the game, then he went to his own football training about a foot taller last night, and this morning he is off to school to talk with his friend who is of German descent about McTominay's goal. the quality winning goal from Tierney and of course McLean's cherry on top (I am sure Shankland will get a mention too). He was also delighted to mention to his friends and training pals that through his Caley Thistle connection, through having been a mascot once as well as taking part in the kids training sessions with the team at the stadium on a couple of visits home, that he had taken to the field alongside Ryan. Ok, so he was maybe 3 or 4 and Ryan was still a youngster himself, but those are small details. He follows Ryan's progress and is delighted he has qualified with Scotland. Also want to take a moment to congratulate Mr ICT, Charlie Christie. Holy F*** how proud he must be of his lad. You could see that in the images from Hampden and to be fair, you see that any time he talks about Ryan. I know how big my own heart swells with pride when my son has a good game at youth level, so to see your son thrive, turn pro, win a cup, equal your own achievements by signing for Celtic then going further and into the EPL and onto the international stage and now in the Hall of Fame due to winning so many caps is amazing ... and now he is likely to represent his country at the World Cup. When the 2026 World Cup strips are released, I think it's time for some merchandise, maybe #11 might get on one or more of them :) The car flags are already looked out and bonus upon all bonuses we have the possibility that some combination of Ireland, Wales or Northern Ireland could qualify through the playoffs. What a feckin night :)

Your assessment is pretty spot on I think. Although, you could argue that without the dodgy penalty for the Danes things might also have gone differently. I had the privilege of listening to a BBC Scotland radio feed on YouTube alongside a graphic showing where the ball was as i could not get live coverage for once. Willie Miller, Chic Young, Billy Dodds and i think Faddy, all sounding like "Allaster MacAllester" rather than BBC commentators but it was actually fun to listen to. Have not heard commentators lose the nut like that since Faddy himself scored against France. Have since seen the goals and 3 of them are belters while Shankland did exactly what he was supposed to do in the box. He is Scottish, he will probably only get an MBE.

When things are running smoothly it works quite well, you just load up an audiobook or a couple of episodes of the Wyness Shuffle and off you go. Its when things go pear-shaped with Toronto traffic that it gets annoying and that unfortunately is not increasingly rare. I prefer to drive to be honest, especially if I have the (not so) little one and dont fancy spending $20 for a beer you can buy for $3 in the shop. I have a sweet spot that doesn't get too busy and its about a 15 minute walk to the stadium. FIFA however will likely be monetising all the parking areas within 5km of the stadium so thats not an option for the world cup.

Oh well, as one door closes another opens as they say ... not sure who actually said that but that's what we all say that someone said isn't it. In my case, the door that closed was yet another advanced World Cup ticket window which ran until October 31st and should have seen those lucky enough to get selected receive a purchase time and date by November 7th. Having said that, this comes with a huge caveat in that there is actually no guarantee that even with a purchase time and date you will get a ticket! The only guarantee is that you will be able to login and see what - if any - tickets are available for the venue you want, and if there are tickets you would be able to purchase up to 4 tickets for your chosen game if available. Lots of ifs, buts, and maybes in here. Its all irrelevant though as my email didn't arrive, so now, a week after the deadline, I am pretty certain I will not be able to login and see if there are any tickets for that exciting match up between TBD and TBD at BMO Field The Toronto Stadium, If it follows the last timeline, I will likely get confirmation of this in about a weeks' time, nearly two weeks after the purchase window has closed. After this window then it's about to get opened up to the public in general and getting a ticket is going to be nigh on impossible although I do have some hope through 'Canada Reds' the organisation for supporters of the Canadian National Team and I still hold out hope that somehow and some way, Toronto FC will also offer some form of ticketing given that they claimed part of the reason for a 25% hike in season ticket prices for next year were because of the $162m cost of upgrades to the stadium for the world cup that they have agreed to partially fund. The rest of the cost will come from the city and I will be on the hook for my share of that through municipal taxes as well .... And now to the door that opened ... I applied way back before even the first ticket window opened to see if I could be a volunteer at the World Cup in Toronto. I heard nothing for a while, but last week just as I realised I was not going to be selected for the next ticketing phase, an email dropped into my inbox saying I had been successful in passing the first test to be a volunteer! You fill in a sizeable application survey that asks you a lot of questions and also gives some scenarios and asks how you would handle specific situations and also state which positions you are interested in. It was clearly designed to screen out those who might not be suitable for one reason or another. I guess my application was empathetic and sensible enough as I have made it past that first hurdle. No idea just how many hurdles there are to overcome, or how many applicants there are (10s or even 100s of thousands I am sure) but my 'Volunteer Team Tryout' is scheduled for tonight. You get a 90-minute tryout window and there are literally hundreds of windows open to choose from in the next few weeks. No idea what they will ask or what they will need us to do, but I've got my ICTFC top and hoodie with me, and my Toronto FC baseball hat and jacket. Hopefully these bring me good luck on my quest for some involvement in the World Cup atmosphere as a volunteer. If not, we keep trying for the tickets until the games themselves are over. I still worry about the infrastructure in Toronto being able to cope ... I mentioned in my last entry that I didn't go to the TFC -V- Miami match as someone made me an offer too good to refuse on my tickets. That offer helped soften the blow of the 25% price hike of the season tickets, but I was determined to make it down to the last game of the season against the other team from Florida (Orlando) on October 18th. My journey down to the stadium was pretty mundane, dropped off at the nearest subway station by my wife, then a 60-minute journey across two subway lines to the main rail station and a 20-minute journey to the stadium on the streetcar. These are absolutely going to be choke points when there are 45,000 people in the stadium. getting from subway to streetcar has a really narrow corridor which looks busy with 100 people in it, let alone several thousand and streetcars themselves, even the double-car articulated ones don't hold as many people as a normal train or a subway car. Toronto won the game comfortably with a final score of 4-2. Canadian international and TFC team captain Jonathon Osorio opened the scoring and goals followed from Djordje Mihailovic (2) and Deandre Kerr, neither of whom are going to be on the radar of anyone reading this blog as far as I know. Mihailovic is of Serbian and Macedonian descent but born in USA and played for the national team 11 times, scoring 3 goals. He is the man TFC turned to when they terminated the contracts of high priced Italian designated players Federico Bernardeschi and Lorenzo Insigne during the season. Still finding his feet in Toronto, he is more workmanlike than the Italians but looks like he will work hard and add some grit to the midfield instead of flash. I do have to say I did like Bernardeschi at TFC. He worked really hard, but with a nearly $7m per year salary, the return was just not enough for the execs of the club. Deandre Kerr is a local lad and at 22 is probably getting to the stage where he needs what they call over here a 'breakout season'. He has popped up with some well needed goals from time to time but needs to do it more regularly if he wants to claim a regular starting spot. If not, then he may just fade. Anyway, back to the infrastructure ... Getting home after the game was a far more challenging affair! Toronto's subway system is definitely what you might call rudimentary. Although there are technically 4 lines, really that is just two main lines supplemented with a couple of shorter ones, one of which is permanently closed before its replacement is in place. You then have streetcar or bus routes above ground in the downtown core. The main system itself looks like a big (crooked) letter U with a line through it. (There is also a commuter train system for cities outside Toronto but that's a different beast). On the map here, to get home, I have to retrace my steps and travel to the bottom of the U from the red streetcar line that's hanging below it like a tail pointing to the left, then all the way up the yellow line until it turns into the purple one, across the purple one to the end, then either a bus or my car north from there for about 10-15 mins. All told, about 90 minutes or so. On this particular day, I made it part way up the yellow line without incident, to one station below the green line, then the whole system was shut down. After sitting on the train, underground, for about 20 minutes, they said get off the train, its out of service and heading back south. Everything north of us was shut down due to an incident at a station 7 stations north of us. This is a common occurrence on the Toronto Transit Commission system (TTC) given the U shape design, trains cannot loop back or bypass stations where an incident happens so the controllers have to reposition them as best they can when problems happen. I ended up having to walk from one station, north to the station where it intersects with the green line, then take it east 4 stops to another station where a bus would take me up to the end of the purple line. It is an alternative, but not a good one. In the end it took nearly 3 hours to get home instead of 1.5 and if it happens during the World Cup with a lot more people in the downtown core, its going to be a logistical nightmare and you know that Uber and Lyft will have surge pricing in force for the whole competition and Toronto taxi prices are already insane. I don't feel full of confidence that the TTC or the Toronto City Council have a proper transit plan in place for the world cup and local news articles about what may be planned (fast track lanes on the streets) make me think that getting around the already congested city in Summer 2026 is going to be almost impossible. Travellers, who do persevere and get a ticket will also have to put that perseverance to the test when travelling around Toronto.

If it weren't for loans over the last couple of seasons, we might be in League 2 (or worse). Just saying. I would also venture that the precarious nature of Scottish football outside the top half of the topflight makes it impractical for many teams to put together that "full playing squad" without loans. It gives the clubs some financial respite and the top clubs an outlet for young, talented players to get more game time ... in the same way we loan many of our young guys to the Highland League. My comment about internationals at the top of the post was a surprise that Alloa had multiple internationals, not of the system itself. agree

Didnt think you got call offs for anything below U21 level ... but as you say, fair play to them. Gives our boys a chance to watch the Greece game !

Ok, I'll bite ... International call ups? Who?