Great Scots! Nine kilt-wearing fans come to KC World Cup by mistake: ‘Good fun’

From the way he tells the tale — in a Scottish brogue as thick as a wee heavy — he and eight of his pals, all part of the Scottish World Cup team’s “Tartan Army” fanbase, “got on the wrong flight.”

Och aye! As a result, they landed Wednesday in Kansas City instead of Miami, where Scotland’s blue and white national team was scheduled to play Brazil, a match Scotland lost 3-0.

Maybe the tale has a bit of the Loch Ness myth to it. (Wrong flight in 2026? Perhaps it was instead a poorly made reservation?) No matter.

“Hi, I’m Paul, there’s nine of us here from Scotland,” Paul of Scotland said Wednesday with his mates, speaking into a microphone on video at Kansas City’s 2026 FIFA Fan Festival. “We were supposed to be in Miami for the game tonight, but we got on the wrong flight, and we ended up in Kansas City. But, you know, it’s been OK. It’s worked out well.”

He shrugged. He continued.

“A few beers. What’s not to like?”

“Kansas City is fabulous, right? And we’re going to the Holland/Tunisia game tomorrow. And we’re going to be in full Scotland set. So it’s going to be good fun. We’ll have a better party with the Dutch guys tomorrow night.”

At that, Paul and four of his friends launched into a singing chant. “No Scotland, no party! No Scotland, no party!”

Which, itself, was not quite true. On Thursday, the presence of nine Scots notwithstanding, Kansas City’s Power and Light KC Live! plaza was packed shoulder to shoulder with partying, singing, hopping orange-clad fans of the Netherlands, who then filled Grand Boulevard in the tens of thousands for a march to the site of the Fan Festival on the grounds of the National World War I Museum and Memorial.

True to their word, the Scots were at the game Thursday night, seen in their kilts in the 320 level of Arrowhead Stadium, renamed Kansas City Stadium for the duration of the World Cup.

The Netherlands defeated Tunisia 3-1.

In the rain. Very Scottish.