Scotland took its last look at World Cup 2026 preparation on Saturday night when it faced Bolivia in Harrison, New Jersey, one week before the opener against Haiti. The warm-up kicked off at 9pm Scotland time, 4pm Eastern time, and gave Steve Clarke one final chance to test his side in the United States before the tournament begins for real.
That is why this match has been drawing attention. Scotland are back at a World Cup for the first time since 1998, and the meeting with Bolivia was the final fixture before Haiti, a game that will open the campaign one week later. Clarke named Angus Gunn in goal, with Lawrence Shankland, Andy Robertson, Aaron Hickey, Ben Gannon-Doak and Ryan Christie kept from the previous weekend’s game against Curacao, while Grant Hanley, Jack Hendry, Lewis Ferguson and Che Adams came into the side. The starting line-up was Gunn, Hickey, Robertson, McTominay, Hanley, Adams, Christie, Hendry, Gannon-Doak, Ferguson and Shankland.
Bolivia arrived as a useful but imperfect test. They were not among the 48 World Cup finalists after losing to Iraq in the intercontinental playoffs, and their last appearance at a World Cup finals came in 1994. Scotland, by contrast, are trying to make the most of every minute before Haiti while adjusting to heat, travel and the rhythm of a major tournament in the United States.
Fitness, though, was already shaping the discussion around selection. Billy Gilmour had been ruled out the week before the match, but Clarke said he could not simply change plans around every setback. “Do you want to wrap them in cotton wool and [they] don’t train?” he said, adding that players have to work because injuries are “part and parcel of football.” He also said that when it happens, especially in the circumstances it happened to Gilmour, it is disappointing, but that the group must “take a deep breath and move forward again.”
That leaves Scotland with the kind of practical question every World Cup side faces before its first game: who stays in the XI, who is held back, and which substitutes can still change the shape of the team against Haiti. The bench in Harrison included Kelly, Gordon, Tierney, McGinn, Fletcher, Dykes, Stewart, Souttar, Hyam, Hirst, Patterson, McLean, Ralston, Curtis and McKenna. For Clarke, the Bolivia match was less about a result than about settling on a plan he will trust one week later, when Scotland’s tournament begins under the more serious lights of the opener against Haiti.
