A LOT of football has been played since the fateful night in Madrid just under three years ago when Rachel Corsie was stretchered off the pitch with a serious anterior cruciate ligament knee injury.
Even without her, Scotland looked set to qualify for Euro 2013 - but that was before Spain's star player, Veronica Boquete, scored with the last kick of the ball to dramatically snatch the prize of a place in Sweden.
Memories of that traumatic play-off defeat are forever etched in the minds of the Scotland players, not least because the occasion was the closest any Scotland women's team has come to making the finals of a major championship.
At the time central defender Corsie was the Glasgow City captain, but now, after spending the best part of a year recovering from her devastating injury, she has joined Kim Little at Seattle Reign after a season at Notts County. She was also part of the Scotland team which lost out in last year's World Cup play-off to the Netherlands, but this time it was below-par performances, rather than bad luck, which ensured that Scotland would not be in Canada.
Corsie, who is 26 and will win her 77th cap in Slovenia today, has the opportunity to put bad memories behind her in the Euro 2017 qualifying campaign. The draw has been kind and there are more places than ever available for the finals. Scotland could finish second in Group 1 and still have every chance of playing in Holland in two years time.
"It would be the pinnacle of my career so far if we made it to the finals," Corsie said, "and the team is at the stage where we are ready and capable of doing it. We have an over-riding desire to get there, so it would be really disappointing if we fall short again."
Group 1 should be a straight fight between top seeds Iceland, who are 18th in the Fifa rankings, and Scotland, who are two places below them. Both will expect to comfortably win their home games against Slovenia, Belarus and Macedonia. The key will be not to fritter away points on the road.
Today Scotland will face a Slovenia side who have lost ten of their last twelve games. The first of these was a home 13-0 defeat to Germany in a World Cup qualifier two years ago, but although the results haven't improved much, the margins have become much tighter, partly because they now have professional players at clubs in Austria.
"They're not a team you want to take for granted, that's for sure," Corsie said. "They can cause us a few problems and they have a couple of experienced, tricky players.
"They will make it difficult for us, so I think it will come down to how we take our chances. We need to make sure we do, because we need to take all three points."
Corsie and her team-mates trained yesterday at the very scenic Ajdovscina Stadium, some 30 minutes by road from the squad's base at Nova Gorica, on the border with Italy. The temperature will be dropping by the time of the 4pm kick off and coach Anna Signeul believes her players should embrace the occasion and opportunity.
"It's fun to play these games," Signeul pointed out. "It should be an enjoyment. The attitude should be: this is what we have been waiting for - now it is starting. It's not about pressure. It's about playing with energy and joy in these games that matter."
The three key players who missed the Norway friendly on Thursday - Corsie, Kim Little and Ifeoma Dieke - will all line up today.
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