Disaster Index: 5.8 Entry: The Talisman Problem Cause: Scotland's campaign against Morocco is being organised, publicly and emotionally, around a single player. Category: Emotional / Structural Evidence: Steve Clarke invokes squad mentality. The coverage invokes McTominay. These are not the same conversation. McTominay scored 17 goals for Napoli in 2024–25. Scotland have averaged 0.9 goals per game in competitive fixtures where he did not score. Historical precedent: The talisman dependency has been documented across Scottish campaigns since Dalglish. The player is never the problem. The dependency is. Affected parties: McTominay, the twelve players not currently being written about as talismans, the supporters who have correctly identified that he is good. Immediate outlook: If McTominay performs, the framing will be confirmed. If he does not, the distance between squad mentality and emotional architecture will become measurable.