Disaster Index: 5.1 Entry: Meatball Coefficient, Pre-Haiti Cause: Scotland's emotional architecture increasingly load-bearing on a single player the night before the opening fixture. Category: Emotional / Structural Evidence: John McGinn is Scotland's captain, primary creative force, and now the subject of a storybook career narrative published 13 hours before kick-off. The biographical investment in one player — Clydebank origin, physical improbability, longevity — concentrates national feeling in a way that functional squad distribution does not. Historical precedent: Scotland has periodically organised its World Cup hope around a single carrier. The record of those carriers is instructive. Affected parties: John McGinn; the portion of Scottish support whose emotional position is now indexed to his performance. Immediate outlook: The coefficient rises if he starts well. It rises further, in a different direction, if he does not. Filed: 11 June 2026 / pre-Haiti