PEDRO Martinez Losa has recalled Reading left back Emma Mitchell to the Scotland squad nine months after she gave birth to a baby daughter. The former Glasgow City and Arsenal defender has 66 caps, the last of which was in February last year.
Scotland will play a friendly against Netherlands in Zwolle on September 2, followed by their final World Cup qualifier in the Faroe Islands four nights later. The baby will also travel with the 23-player squad, which includes Rosengard winger Fiona Brown - who also returns following her recovery from a fourth serious knee injury.
There was further good news for Martinez Losa when midfielder Caroline Weir scored her first goal for Real Madrid on Sunday. It was only her second start for the club after joining from Manchester City in the summer – and, in a scarcely believable twist, the goal in a 1-0 victory at the Alfredo Di Stefano Stadium knocked City out of the Champions League.
“Real Madrid is my club from childhood,” Martinez Losa, who was brought up in the Spanish capital, said. “I think her style fits very well with the way Spanish teams want to play.
“She probably feels she has an important role and maybe a bit more freedom She is a player with creativity, so as a second striker she has the ability to make the most of that.
“Other teams will learn throughout the season how to mark her, because she is an important player for Real Madrid, but she has put herself at the next level. She is a world class player and what we want her to do is produce that consistently.”
Spain's establishment side have only had a women's team since 2020, and last season finished 30 points behind Barcelona in the Primera Division, with Real Sociedad also in front of them. Martinez Losa says they have some way to catch up with a Barcelona side which won the Champions League in 2020-21, and lost in the final to Lyon last season.
“It is just the third year and it still needs a little work to be done,” the Scotland head coach pointed out. “When you are Real Madrid and you see one of your teams is losing 5-0 against Barcelona you say this cannot happen any more and you need to put the resources towards it.”
While Martinez Losa is happy to see Weir's game flourish in Madrid, he believes it will also help Scotland's chances if Rangers qualify for the group stage of the Champions League. They are just two games away from doing so, and, following their opening wins against Ferencvaros and PAOK, will learn who their second round opponents are a week tomorrow (thurs).
Four Rangers players were named in yesterday's squad and Martinez Losa says being exposed to the highest level of European club competition can only be good for the national team.
Rangers will replace Celtic at the top of the SWPL if they beat Hearts in their game in hand at Broadwood tonight, while Glasgow City host Dundee Utd at Petershill Park.
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