Sixteen caps. Zero goals. Five years in the wilderness. Oli McBurnie’s Scotland career reads like an unfinished sentence, and at 30 he has been handed a pen he never expected to hold again.
Sebastien Pocognoli’s first squad as Scotland head coach contained six uncapped players — Swansea’s Stephen Welsh, Celtic right-back Colby Donovan, Brondby’s Luis Binks, Stoke centre-back Luke Graham, Hearts winger Josh McPake and Sevilla striker Robbie Ure — but the name that stopped people was the one everybody already knew. McBurnie has not played for his country since 2021. Steve Clarke, in the end, simply stopped picking him.
“There were times when it looked like I was never going to come back,” McBurnie said. “I’m eternally grateful to the manager for giving me the chance.”
The exile, and how he earned his way out of it
The reasons for McBurnie’s disappearance were never fully spelled out in public, which allowed everyone else to fill in the blanks. There was the 2019 video in which he was heard saying he hoped not to be called up. There was the drip of stories casting him as a disruptive presence. There was the World Cup squad he phoned to ask about and was left out of anyway.
He does not hide from any of it. On the video: “It’s something that I shouldn’t have said. I was maybe 23 years old, an insecure kid.” On Clarke: “He explained to me his reasons and that’s completely fair enough. I was gutted.” On the football itself, the part too often skipped over in the noise: “I didn’t play well enough when I put on the Scotland shirt.”
That last admission matters, because the case for his recall is not sentimental. After a year at Las Palmas, McBurnie scored 19 goals for Hull City last season, the final one a 95th-minute play-off winner against Middlesbrough that carried the club into the Premier League. He has begun this season as the focal point of Sergej Jakirovic’s side in the top flight, doing the unglamorous work — holding the ball, occupying centre-backs, winning the first contact — that Scotland have lacked since Che Adams and Lyndon Dykes started splitting the role between them.
Pocognoli’s stated criteria were clinical: “style of play, playing time, performances.” No revenge narrative, no clean-slate speeches. A striker playing every week in the Premier League gets picked.
Why Scotland need what he offers
The timing is not coincidental. Scott McTominay, Lawrence Shankland, Ross Stewart and Adams are all injured, leaving Pocognoli four recognised forwards in a 28-man squad for four Nations League fixtures — Slovenia home and away, Switzerland and North Macedonia. Dykes, in form at Millwall, missed out. Twelve players from the Clarke era were dropped, among them John Souttar, Anthony Ralston and Steven Fletcher, while Billy Gilmour returns from injury.
What McBurnie brings is a specific profile Scotland have struggled to replace: a genuine target man with aerial dominance and enough technical security to make Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney’s deliveries count for something. For most of the past cycle Scotland have attacked without a fixed point in the box, asking midfielders to arrive late into space nobody was creating. McBurnie creates that space simply by standing in it.
Pocognoli has gone further, suggesting the Leeds-born striker is a candidate for the leadership group — an extraordinary line about a player whose reputation for the past five years has been built almost entirely on what he was said to be in a dressing room he was not in.
What comes next
The obvious question is the one hanging over all 16 previous caps. McBurnie has never scored for Scotland, and he knows the number follows him around.
- Sixteen appearances since his 2018 debut, none since 2021
- Nineteen goals for Hull last season, including the Wembley play-off winner
- Four senior strikers available to Pocognoli across this four-match block
“A tap-in on Saturday or one that goes in off my backside would be lovely,” he said — a line that is funny until you consider how long he has waited to be in a position to say it.
He insists the man returning is not the one who left. “I’ve had two kids since I last won a cap. I’m a different person, 100%.” He also concedes the years of criticism landed: “It’s got to me at times. It’s been hard to deal with.”
Pocognoli’s assessment was more economical, and probably more useful. “He is older. It is a new experience.” For a manager beginning his own Scotland story, and a striker being allowed to restart his, that is the whole proposition. McBurnie has been given something very few players in his position get — a second first impression.
Sources: [Yahoo Sports — ‘Eternally grateful’ McBurnie ready to show what Scotland have missed](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/eternally-grateful-mcburnie-ready-show-070511900.html), [Yahoo Sports — Oli McBurnie recalled as six new faces in Pocognoli’s first Scotland squad](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/oli-mcburnie-recalled-six-faces-145229313.html), [beIN Sports — McBurnie receives Scotland recall](https://www.beinsports.com/en-us/soccer/uefa-nations-league/articles/mcburnie-receives-scotland-recall-in-pocognolis-first-squad-2026-09-15), [Squawka — Hull City 2026/27 Premier League preview](https://www.squawka.com/en/news/hull-city-premier-league-2026-27-preview/)
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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