Disaster Index: 5.1 Entry: The Recalled & The Risk Cause: Scotland naming Sam Kerr and Martha Thomas in their first squad in almost a year for a World Cup play-off with no margin for reintegration error. Category: Structural Evidence: Both players absent from the Scotland setup for approximately eleven months. The play-off against Czech Republic is a single-path qualification route. Returning players must hit competitive form inside a squad window, not a pre-season. Historical precedent: Scotland's qualification record includes several instances of selection decisions that reflected hope about available capacity rather than confirmed evidence of it. Affected parties: Scotland Women's squad; the returned players; supporters whose calculation of the squad's realistic ceiling just shifted. Immediate outlook: The recalls are explicable. Whether they are timely is the question the next match will answer, not this announcement. Filed: 23 September 2026 / Women's World Cup Round One Play-Off preparation