The 2026 Scottish Cup Final
Road to the final, previous meetings, trophy counts and prize money
Scottish Cup Record
Dunfermline: Finals Reached: 6 (last in 2007); Finals Won: 2 (last in 1968)
Celtic: Finals Reached: 62 (last in 2025); Finals Won: 42 (last in 2024)
Celtic and Dunfermline Athletic meet at Hampden Park today with the usual mammoth financial imbalance you’d expect between the Premiership champions and the fourth best team in the Championship. Dunfermline come into the Final with a strong Scottish Cup run though; they’ve scored eight goals, only conceded once, kept four clean sheets and eliminated three Premiership clubs.
Dunfermline reached the final by defeating Falkirk on penalties, which was Dunfermline’s 11th penalty shootout victory from the 16 they’ve ever been involved in. The Pars became only the sixth side in history to reach the Scottish Cup Final courtesy of a penalty shoot-out, and the fourth in the last decade, after both Rangers & Hibs in 2016 and Celtic in 2024.
Dunfermline are only the sixth non-top tier side to reach a Scottish Cup final having beaten three top-tier sides en route.
Celtic on the other hand have faced various difficulties in each round up to now - needing extra-time twice and penalties once. The Hoops have also lost their last two domestic Cup finals, showing they aren’t as infallible as they have been in recent years, and we’ll get to the historical significance of such a run shortly.
The 6-2 Semi-Final win over St. Mirren was the joint 3rd highest-scoring Scottish Cup Semi-Final ever, behind only Cambuslang 10-1 Abercorn in 1888 and Greenock Morton 2-7 Rangers in 1897. It was the fifth time Celtic have won a Scottish Cup Semi-Final by 4 goals, however it’s not their largest margin of victory as they’ve won by 5 goals on four occasions (including last year Vs St Johnstone).
Celtic’s blistering extra-time spell also saw them become the third Scottish team to score four goals in six minutes this century, after Stirling Albion’s 7-0 win over Montrose in 2016, which included goals either side of half time, and Hamilton’s 5-2 win over Stranraer in the 2022 League Cup.
It was just the fourth time in Scottish Cup history that both semi-finals went to extra time, after 2013, 2016 and the two semi-final replays in 1968.
Lower Tier Finalists
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