AN extraordinary landmark is expected to be reached at Hampden tonight. To play 50 times for your country is special, but to do it after four major knee surgeries must be unique.
Fiona Brown, who plays for Swedish champions Rosengard, won cap No 49 in the 1-0 win over Australia on Friday. The converted full back is almost certain to achieve the half century against Costa Rica at the national stadium.
The 28-year-old was a winger with Celtic when she suffered the first of three ACL injuries in 2012. Three years later, after she had joined Glasgow City, a second operation was required on the other knee following another ACL rupture – and at that point she was told to forget about professional football.
Undeterred, Brown resumed her career with City and Scotland before moving to Swedish club Eskilstuna United in 2017. She joined current champions Rosengard the following year, but needed a third knee operation in 2019 following a cartilage injury – and that was followed by her third ACL, and fourth knee surgery, two years later.
Given that each operation was followed by at least nine months of rest, recovery and rehabilitation, reaching the 50-cap milestone tonight is even more remarkable. Speaking at Hampden, Brown confirmed: “Medically it looked very unlikely I would play again.
READ MORE: How Australia win augurs well for Scotland future
“My third ACL was my fourth knee surgery and I didn’t know if I had it in me to come back. I was 26 and it is a lot of surgery to have gone through. But I am surrounded by people who didn’t let me give up. I owe a lot of people a lot of thanks.
“I think it is worse for my Mum and Dad because I only know one way of playing. I fly into tackles and I couldn’t play any other way.
“I am so honoured to have played for Scotland just once, because as a kid that was my dream. Every time is just as special and to be closing in on 50 is massive for me.”
Brown could be facing Glasgow City winger Priscila Chinchilla at Hampden tonight. Last season's PFA Scotland player-of-the-year was on the pitch throughout Costa Rica's 2-1 friendly loss to Poland on Thursday.
“She is a great player and has done so well in the Scottish league,” Brown said. “We know she is a threat and we will have a game plan to try and cope with that.”
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