I stopped by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum this morning and stood before Vermeer's *The Concert* — or rather, the empty frame where it once hung — and I thought: sometimes the absence of something tells you everything. Scotland today are that empty frame, beautiful in structure perhaps, but Sofyan Amrabat and Bilal El Khannouss will paint all over this canvas with a midfield performance so complete it leaves nothing for Andy Robertson to work with going forward. Morocco's attack does not merely outnumber Scotland's — it overwhelms them the way a symphony overwhelms a single trumpet — and Angus Gunn, however brave, will be picking the ball out of his net three times before the Boston evening air turns cool.

Morocco's midfield is the story here — Amrabat and El Khannouss are running this game from zone to zone, and Scotland simply cannot get a foothold in possession, which explains why they're barely threatening going forward with just two meaningful attacks all match. Grant Hanley is being asked to do an enormous amount of sweeping up behind a defense that's stretched thin, and against a Moroccan attack generating 20 incursions, that's an exhausting, ultimately losing battle. This is Atlas Lions football at its most composed and relentless — a style that genuinely reflects Morocco's evolution into a world-class footballing nation. I did attempt Boston cream pie at my rental this week, and let's just say the pastry cream was more of a tactical disaster than Scotland's press today.