Before a single ball was kicked Thursday night, the Tartan Army had already won Boston. Thousands of kilted, flag-waving Scottish supporters poured through downtown streets in a procession that looked less like a pre-game march and more like an invasion — kilts, saltires, bare-chested maniacs, and at the front of it all, a mounted police officer on a horse that looked like it had been borrowed from the Highlands.
The Tartan Army's full pre-match procession through Boston, complete with police escort and a sea of saltire flags.
The energy inside the stadium was electric enough that Dave Portnoy — not exactly a known soccer guy — was posting "So cool" like he'd just been converted at a revival. Big Cat put it more directly: "Fuck. Am I in the Tartan Army now? I think I am." When Scotland's fans belted out "Flower of Scotland" before kickoff, you could supposedly hear it from anywhere in New England. That's not a metaphor. The singing was that loud.
Then Morocco's Saibari hit the back of the net roughly 2 minutes in and knocked the wind out of every kilt in the building.
Morocco's Saibari opens the scoring against Scotland inside the first 2 minutes at the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Boston.
Portnoy called it "an absolute punch in the dick" that took the Scots right out of it — and he wasn't wrong. Scotland never recovered. They showed some life late in the first half, per Portnoy, but Morocco's #10 was reportedly operating at a Pele-level that Scotland — which Portnoy also described as possibly the slowest team in World Cup history — couldn't handle. By the final whistle, the Tartan Army's remarkable run through Boston had come to a close.
What happened next is the actual story. The stadium filled with "Flower of Scotland" one more time — Portnoy filmed the crowd, saltires draped over every railing, thousands of voices singing for a team that had just been eliminated. It should have been a funeral. Instead, it felt like a send-off that nobody wanted to give. And as it turned out, the fans didn't want to give it at all.
A Scotland supporter on camera after the match makes his position crystal clear: he is not going home.
That sentiment wasn't limited to one guy with a camera in his face. The morning after the loss, STV News caught footage of a kilted Tartan Army member raking soil in a planted median outside a Boston building — hi-vis vest crowd, sleeveless shirt, kilt, rake, not a single care in the world. Scotland lost. He found a landscaping crew. He joined the landscaping crew. That's the Tartan Army. Wonton Don (@DonnieDoesWorld) is already concerned about how they'll hold up against Miami humidity when the tournament moves south — and honestly, that feels like a legitimate worry. The humidity is going to be a harder opponent than Morocco. But based on available evidence, the Tartan Army will show up in kilts anyway and rake somebody's garden.
STV News footage of a kilted Scottish fan pitching in on Boston landscaping the morning after Scotland's elimination.
Portnoy called it "a remarkable run for Scotland in Boston" and said the Tartan Army "will live on forever in the history of Boston sports." That's not hyperbole — or at least it's the right kind. This city has hosted a lot of championship runs and a lot of fan bases, but it's never seen anything quite like thousands of Scotsmen in kilts marching through its streets, singing their country's anthem at full volume through a loss, and then sticking around to help rake the flower beds. What a week.