Why does pattern matching in Scala not work with variables?

What you're looking for is a stable identifier. In Scala, these must either start with an uppercase letter, or be surrounded by backticks.

Both of these would be solutions to your problem:

def mMatch(s: String) = {
    val target: String = "a"
    s match {
        case `target` => println("It was" + target)
        case _ => println("It was something else")
    }
}

def mMatch2(s: String) = {
    val Target: String = "a"
    s match {
        case Target => println("It was" + Target)
        case _ => println("It was something else")
    }
}

To avoid accidentally referring to variables that already existed in the enclosing scope, I think it makes sense that the default behaviour is for lowercase patterns to be variables and not stable identifiers. Only when you see something beginning with upper case, or in back ticks, do you need to be aware that it comes from the surrounding scope.

You can also assign it to a temporary variable inside the case and then compare it, that will also work

def mMatch(s: String) = {
    val target: String = "a"
    s match {
        case value if (value ==target) => println("It was" + target) //else {} optional
        case _ => println("It was something else")
    }
}