The Tartan Army is officially packing their bags for North America. Sunscreen sales in Glasgow have skyrocketed. We are exactly 23 days away from the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicking off on June 11, and the national blood pressure is already redlining.

Squad announcement day is always a beautifully toxic event in this country. You gather around your phone or a pub television, waiting for the graphic to drop, entirely prepared to be utterly furious about the inclusion of a third-choice right-back.

But this year, the fury is not just the usual performative pub moaning. It is entirely justified. When the final squad list dropped today, two names stood out for very different reasons, and one gaping hole in the midfield left half the country staring at the wall in disbelief.

Ross Stewart and Findlay Curtis have secured their boarding passes. Lennon Miller is staying home. Let's unpack this absolute fever dream of a managerial decision.

The Crime of Leaving Lennon Miller on the Couch

Let's start with the omission that has Motherwell fans—and anyone with functioning eyes—screaming into their scarves. Leaving Lennon Miller out of a World Cup squad in 2026 borders on pure footballing malpractice.

We are talking about the brightest midfield prospect Scottish football has produced in a decade. This kid does not play like a teenager. He dictates the tempo of a match like a grizzled veteran who has been smoking forty a day and seeing the Matrix since the late nineties.

He finds pockets of space that simply shouldn't exist, and his distribution is sickeningly precise. The argument for leaving him out is predictably hollow. We hear whispers about experience and physicality.

It is the classic, tired crutch of conservative international management. We need guys who have been there. Been where, exactly? The couch during the knockout stages?

You don't leave a generational talent at home because you need another safe pair of legs to run around and pass backward against aggressive group stage opponents. You bring Miller because when you are down a goal and need someone to thread a needle in the 82nd minute against a deeply entrenched defense, he is the only guy who can actually see the pass.

Instead, Miller will be watching the World Cup on a television somewhere in Lanarkshire. It is a massive, unforgivable missed opportunity to blood a kid who will probably be carrying this national team midfield on his back for the next four tournament cycles.

In a tournament where heat and fatigue will open up spaces in the final third, leaving your most creative problem-solver behind feels like self-sabotage. It is the kind of decision that haunts a manager if the team crashes out in the group stage without registering a shot on target.

Ross Stewart and the 'Big Game' Gamble

Now let's look at who actually did get a boarding pass. Ross Stewart. The Loch Ness Drogba is officially back in the international fold.

As the BBC kindly pointed out this morning, Stewart has been labeled the big game scorer, and his inclusion over others is a massive talking point. Look, I get the logic. When he is fit and firing, he is an absolute nightmare for defenders.

He runs the channels relentlessly, he wins the ugly aerial duels, and he has a documented knack for finding the back of the net when the stakes are terrifyingly high. You absolutely need a big man to cause chaos when Plan A inevitably stalls.

But let's not pretend this isn't a massive, sweat-inducing gamble. Stewart's medical history over the last few years reads like a horror novel. Putting him on a plane to play in the blistering summer humidity of North America feels like playing Russian roulette with your striking options.

The physical demands of this specific World Cup—the travel, the climate, the condensed schedule—will break perfectly healthy players. Relying on a guy whose hamstrings have historically been made of spun sugar is wildly optimistic.

If his body actually holds together, he could absolutely bully a tired center-back in the group stages and become a national hero. If his calf pings in the first training session in Texas, we are looking at a glaring hole up top and asking John McGinn to run himself into the ground playing as a makeshift false nine again.

You cannot deny the romance of the Stewart pick. If he bags a late winner against a South American heavyweight, he will never have to buy a pint in Edinburgh for the rest of his natural life. But it is a razor-thin tightrope to walk.

Findlay Curtis Sneaks Through the Back Door

Then there is Findlay Curtis. Raise your hand if you had Curtis making the final cut on your 2026 bingo card. Put your hand down, you are lying to me and to yourself.

This is the ultimate wildcard pick. The guy who sneaks into the squad at the eleventh hour and makes everyone scramble to check his highlight reel on YouTube. The young Rangers prospect is officially going to the World Cup, and it completely highlights the manager's tactical priorities.

Curtis brings raw, unadulterated energy. He hasn't been ground down by the relentless misery of international heartbreak yet. He is young, he is hungry, and he will run through a brick wall if you point him at it and tell him there is a football on the other side.

In a tournament that will demand insane physical exertion, having a guy who doesn't know any better than to just sprint out of his skin for ninety minutes is actually quite useful.

Is he technically superior to Lennon Miller? Absolutely not. Not in this lifetime or the next. But he fits a very specific tactical profile that conservative managers adore.

He is a pure disruptor. You throw Curtis on when the game is bogged down in the midfield and you need someone to press a sleepy holding midfielder into a panic attack.

It is a decision that screams we are going to defend for our lives and try to nick something on the counter. It is not pretty, it is not progressive, but it is undeniably Scottish.

A Midfield Built for Survival, Not Style

The broader takeaway from this entire squad selection is that Scotland is going to North America to survive, not to entertain. The blunt reality of the situation was summed up perfectly by the BBC feed today.

"Ross Stewart and Findlay Curtis are named in Scotland's World Cup squad but there is no place for Lennon Miller."

That single sentence tells you everything you need to know about how we are going to play. The midfield is absolutely packed with grafters. Scott McTominay, Billy Gilmour, John McGinn.

They will run themselves into the ground for the shirt. They will cover every single blade of grass. They will make tackles that rattle teeth.

But who is picking the lock? When we inevitably go down a goal and the opposition drops into a low block, who is providing the spark of pure creativity?

That was supposed to be Miller's job. Now, the burden falls entirely on Gilmour to dictate the tempo from deep, with McTominay expected to magically arrive in the box and score towering headers like a vintage target man.

It is a highly functional squad. It is a squad built by a manager who looks at a grinding 0-0 draw and sees an absolute tactical masterclass.

But World Cups aren't won—or even survived—by just grafting and hoping for a set-piece goal. Eventually, you need a moment of magic. You need a player who sees the game differently, someone who can slow down the frantic pace and deliver a killer ball.

By leaving Miller behind in favor of pure runners and target men, we have willingly left our best magic trick at home.

Counting Down the Days

We are twenty-three days out. The die is cast. The tickets are booked. The squad is locked in.

Ross Stewart is going to have to prove his legs are made of titanium and that he truly is the big game scorer he is billed to be. Findlay Curtis is going to have to prove he belongs on the biggest stage on earth and that raw energy can translate into international results.

And Lennon Miller? He is going to have to spend the summer proving that this snub is the absolute worst mistake the national team setup has made in a generation.

My money is firmly on Miller doing exactly that in the Scottish Premiership next season. Every goal he scores and every assist he registers will be a silent rebuke to the conservative mindset that kept him off the plane.

But for now, we have to buy into the madness. We argue in the pubs, we complain relentlessly on social media, and we get ready to subject ourselves to the absolute emotional meat grinder that is Scotland at a major international tournament.

Bring on June 11. May someone have mercy on our collective blood pressure, because the footballing gods certainly will not.