ERIN CUTHBERT says she is confident that Scotland can still reach a second successive World Cup finals via October's play-offs despite losing 2-0 to Spain at Hampden on Tuesday night. The win means the visitors have qualified as Group B winners with two games to spare.
If Tuesday's outcome was no surprise – Spain are unbeaten for over two years and were averaging over eight goals a game in qualifying before they arrived in Glasgow – the close scoreline was a reflection of Scotland's best performance in the group, even if it didn't delay the inevitable outcome of Spain finishing top. The high pressing and energy of the home side was in stark contrast to the manner in which they had been routed 8-0 by Spain in Seville in November.
Scotland stay in pole position for the play-offs in second place, one point ahead of Hungary with both sides having played six of their eight games. Ukraine are also in contention, but recent events mean they have only played four games and are six points adrift of Cuthbert's side.
Cuthbert, who won cap No.50 in front of a record crowd of 7804 for a home competitive match, said: “We knew Tuesday night wasn't a deciding moment in the group.
“We didn't want Spain to qualify at our home ground, but everyone wrote us off before the game even started considering what had happened in Seville. We have a lot to be proud of and it gives us something to build on.
“This is a team with a lot of Barcelona players, and we have already seen that they are the leading team in European football, so we knew it would be hard. But if you go into a game not believing you can get a result then you are in the wrong sport.
“We imposed ourselves, and the fact is we were disappointed, very disappointed, to come away with the defeat. We had a couple of good chances and it's small margins.
“We can qualify, of course we can. That is the message in the dressing room. We need points against Ukraine and the Faroe Islands and then see where we are.”
Two wins would guarantee a play-off place, but given there must be serious doubts about Ukraine being able to complete their group matches, a win in the Faroes in September may be enough.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here