Scott McTominay: I didn't know what people were saying about me and the World Cup

Picture the scene. Scotland fans are drinking Boston’s bars dry. Meanwhile, unbeknown to them, their star player, their main hope, was getting a police escort to a hospital in the city to have his heartbeat jolted back into a normal pattern. Scotland tend to make a drama out of World Cups, but this is something else.

It is almost a year to the day since Scott McTominay wowed the world with an overhead kick to set Scotland on the way to qualifying for the tournament for the first time in 28 years against Denmark. This might have been expected to be a main topic of conversation as the player sat down for an all-too rare interview at Hampden on Tuesday.

In the end, however, this scintillating piece of skill, immortalised on a tenement gable end near Hampden, proved barely an afterthought. McTominay consents to interviews only very infrequently, certainly in Scotland. When he does do them, they seem like events.

Scott McTominay is back in the Scotland set-up. | SNS Group / SFA

This is especially the case when he is recalling being blue lighted through the streets of Boston a couple of evenings before Scotland were due to make their long-awaited return to the World Cup against Haiti.

It is scarcely believable that having had his heart effectively reset, he was lining up against the Caribbean nation in a pulsating World Cup encounter a mere 36 hours later. He very nearly even scored.

The Napoli midfielder watched a shot crash off the post in the first half shortly before John McGinn scored with a deflected effort that proved the winner. Although he was so close to getting on the scoresheet, the general perception was that McTominay struggled to shake off the effects of the “stomach bug” that had been communicated as the reason for his absence from training two days beforehand.

The midfielder was considered never to have reached the heights expected of him during Scotland’s tournament, which lasted another two games. It must have been excruciatingly irritating for him to read such verdicts and be unable to respond.

He was even rated in some quarters as among the tournament’s biggest flops. The Scotland staff couldn’t say anything, nor could he. He claims he was oblivious to the criticism.

“I didn’t know that’s what people were saying,” he said. “Although I probably had an idea. I’ve been criticised a million times before in my career before but I don’t let it get under my skin or worry too much about it.

“You know yourself as a professional footballer if you’re not quite where you should be. For me, I had half an idea but you just try to block it out because if you think about negative things you might speak it into existence.”

There might be a lot of people eating humble pie having been informed of the true nature of McTominay’s health problem. It’s no one’s fault. You can’t refer to such a serious mitigating factor if it’s being – understandably – kept hidden. McTominay explained to rapt reporters the details behind his condition, which is known as atrial fibrillation. In other words, an unsteady heartbeat. He even provided some sound effects. Who says McTominay is an unwilling interviewee?

“Atrial fibrillation is a fairly normal routine thing for people in general,” he said. “They might not know that they have it. But when you're an elite athlete in general across the board, across football, across sports in general, you know if you've got something that's different.

“Whenever you're running and you check your pulse and it's got a slight irregular beat there, it feels like your heart's coming out of your chest.

“Not obviously as bad as that but that's the sensation that you have. It's pumping, but not a regular heartbeat like bum, bum, bum, bum. Mine's going bum, bu-bu-bum, bum, bu-bu-bum. So you know the difference.”

You also know that it’s not something you would wish to develop on the eve of the World Cup that is being played in intense temperatures.

“The heat was tough, that was probably the hardest part,” he reflected. “But I’ve worked for 20 years as a young footballer and as a professional to get to that point, to try and play well at a World Cup.” Nothing, he stressed, was going to stop him, not even lying on a hospital bed under anaesthetic two evenings before the first game while an electrode is placed on his chest.

He has since been back in hospital for a more involved procedure. Napoli released a statement in September to say the minimally invasive operation known as cardiac ablation surgery had been “a complete success” although McTominay missed several matches, including the first four Nations League fixtures under new manager Sebastien Pocognoli.

“I went into that surgery with no doubt in my mind that I’d be back,” he said. “I lost a little bit of muscle when I came out, three or four kilos which wasn’t ideal. I had to put that back on pretty sharpish.

“The first picture of me when I came back, I looked quite gaunt. So I had to get that muscle back so I could get back my powerful running and what I normally do on a football pitch.

“It was a good reset period for me,” he added. “No matter how long it took - even if it took until I was 40! - I was coming back to try and do my best. I’ve had a good time to reflect on the World Cup and think about things leading up to it.

“When I had the operation I had three weeks at home. I didn’t watch as much football as I normally do. I (normally) watch every game of football, every night. It’s relentless with me.

“Games in the Champions League, Europa League, Scottish football, the Premier League, Serie A - I watch a lot now compared to when I was younger.

“So I had three weeks of resting my mind more than anything to try and come back in a better state.”

It’s good news for the Tartan Army, who are desperate for McTominay, who turns 30 next month, to rescue Scotland from an unsure start to the Nations League under Pocognoli. The Belgian has stressed he wants to find a way of taking the burden off those such as McTominay. But the player himself doesn’t mind the extra responsibility. Indeed, he relishes it.

“He's mentioned that to me before about maybe taking a little bit (of the burden) and putting it across the whole board, but I don’t see football like that,” he said.

“I don’t go into a game thinking that the people watching really need me to do something here so I try to do different things, you just play the game, don’t you?

“Express yourself and play how you would normally play, and the rest will take care of itself, you don’t need to overthink about pressure.

“I’ve played at Man United, I’ve played at Napoli, I know what pressure is. I’ve played for Scotland in the World Cup, I know what pressure is. It’s not the worst thing in the world that can happen to you. It’s a privilege to have things expected of you.”

Pocognoli told reporters last week that he was looking forward to making a connection with someone generally identified as Scotland’s star player. It seems he is already well on the way to achieving this despite the pair only having met in the flesh for the first time earlier this week.

It was Pocognoli's idea for McTominay to sit down with the media at Hampden on Tuesday, an instruction he obeyed.

“I like his ideas a lot,” said McTominay “Whenever I first had a meeting with him, I liked the way that he wants to play the game.”

At the end of the near 15-minute conversation with McTominay, an annual at best occurrence, there was just about enough time to reference the approaching one-year anniversary of That goal. And mention That 36ft tall mural, which was unveiled earlier this year.

“Unreal,” he said. “I don’t know how I feel. I obviously like it, it’s incredible, but if you were asking me, you don’t want my big ugly face up there!”