Fifa World Cup: Scott McTominay has gone from Man Utd heartbreak to Scotland & Napoli icon

His Napoli years – the Serie A title in 2024-25 and the adoration that came with it – have turned him into a player who is worshipped in Naples and identified throughout the world.

McTominay is the superstar of this Scotland team, the guy with a giant mural on the side of a house near Hampden and whose frame – mid-bicycle kick against Denmark on the night of all nights last November – is on a bank note.

For club and country he has scored 13, 16 and 17 goals in the last three seasons, some of them to win a title in Italy, others helping Scotland to the World Cup.

McTominay has 70 caps and has played multiple positions – right-sided centre-back, defensive midfielder, attacking midfielder. He is now exactly where he wants to be, in every sense.

Naismith has watched him grow into a player of huge substance, on and off the field. “He can glide across the pitch with elegance. He’s such an athlete,” he said.

“And see his passing – it’s as if you’re in a computer game. It’s like in Super Mario where you get a mushroom and you’re bigger, if that makes sense. He’s just more powerful than everybody else.

“The last part is you just hope he’s not an arsehole – and he’s not. He’ll hang about with the youngest players in the squad at dinner and he’ll chat away to them.

“And then the next day he could be sitting with [John] McGinn and Robbo [Andy Robertson] and Kenny McLean and Grant [Hanley] and be part of that.

“And then he might just be by himself for a bit. He’s a social butterfly and it’s all pure happiness for him.”

It’s taken a lot of hard work to get McTominay happy. A nation will be hoping he’s still smiling in the wake of their opener against Haiti, Scotland’s first World Cup game since the great thoroughbred in their midfield was barely out of nappies.