By Gus "Walk-Off" Fields
Oli McBurnie has heard the doubts before — from Steve Clarke's team sheets, from Scotland fans who moved on without him. Now he's back in the picture, and by his own account, he isn't taking it lightly.
According to BBC Sport's Tom English, McBurnie was overlooked by manager Steve Clarke and dismissed by a portion of the Tartan Army before this recall — the kind of stretch that ends careers in the national shirt for good. Instead, he's returned saying he's "eternally grateful" for the chance to show what the team has missed without him.
It's a familiar sports story, but a real one: the forward written off, given one more door, and determined to prove the write-off wrong. English's piece frames McBurnie's return less as a triumphant comeback and more as a pointed second chance — one he knows could easily not have come.
What exactly changed Clarke's calculus, or how McBurnie plans to use his minutes when they come, wasn't detailed beyond his own remarks to the BBC. But the stakes are plain enough: for a Scotland squad navigating a demanding qualifying stretch, every forward option matters, and McBurnie clearly intends to make his count.
There's something to like about a player who says the quiet part out loud — that he was left out, that it stung, and that gratitude, not entitlement, is driving him back in. Whether he gets the run of games to prove it remains to be seen. But give him this: he showed up wanting it.
Final score's the last thing that mattered here.
— Compiled from reporting by BBC Sport (Tom English).
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