Thousands of kilted Scotland supporters poured into the streets of the Boston area on Thursday, turning downtown into something that looked more like Glasgow on a Saturday than New England on a summer night. The Tartan Army — Scotland's legendary traveling support — marched through the city escorted by a mounted police officer on a Clydesdale-style horse, a sea of saltires and Ailsa Craig banners stretching as far back as you could see. They weren't alone, either. Norway fans had already taken over Union Street in their horned Viking helmets, doing the full sit-down rowing chant outside the Union Oyster House. By the time Morocco's supporters showed up in their red Puma kits chanting outside a pizza joint, Boston had fully transformed into a neutral-site World Cup city, which is a sentence nobody expected to type when this tournament was awarded.
The Tartan Army parade through Boston ahead of Scotland vs Morocco, thousands of kilts and saltires led by a mounted police escort.
The pre-match chaos peaked when FOX's broadcast crew leaned all the way into the moment. On a Boston rooftop with the skyline behind them, Rob Gronkowski showed up on air in a dark kilt flanked by a live bagpiper — a kilt reveal that qualifies as one of the more genuinely unhinged things to ever happen on a pregame show. The crowd online immediately lost its mind, and honestly, fair.
Gronkowski and his FOX co-host hit the Boston rooftop in full kilts alongside a bagpiper for their FIFA Club World Cup broadcast — the wardrobe reveal is the whole joke.
The bit had legs. Barstool clocked 2 Scotland fans who climbed up onto a statue in a park, fired up the crowd below them, and marched off through the throng — and the comparison to 2 very famous former Patriots was too easy to pass up. For the record: those are not actually Gronk and Julian Edelman. They are just Scotland guys. But if the kilt fits.
2 Tartan Army fans climb a statue in kilts and get the crowd going — Barstool's take was that the Tartan Army had just signed Gronk and Edelman.
Big Cat caught the full wave of it from whatever screen he was watching and had only one response: "Fuck. Am I in the Tartan Army now? I think I am." That's the thing about Scotland's traveling support — they have an almost gravitational pull. Meanwhile, Dave Portnoy was physically inside the stadium for his first World Cup game ever, watching the USA game and already pitching a USA vs Scotland final out loud. He did also file a dispatch from the Scotland-Morocco crowd noting that Morocco's #10 'may be Pele' and that Scotland 'may be the slowest team in the history of the World Cup,' which is the kind of first-timer take that ages either perfectly or terribly. Morocco did score — their manager barely reacted, stone-faced on the touchline while his team celebrated. Scotland and their newly adopted Boston fanbase had a rough night on the scoreboard. The Tartan Army, though? They already won the city.