So, it’s the biggie today for Scotland. They take on Spain, in Madrid, with just a one goal victory (or a 2-2 or higher score draw) the only thing between them and a place at Euro 2013.
Players, coach, staff, fans, nation – they are desperate to make a finals and join Europe’s elite. They missed out on Finland 2009, on the agonising away goals rule, to Russia, four years ago. But Spain are so hungry to be in Sweden next summer too…
“This is our time,” said Spanish playmaker Vero Boquete when we spoke to her last week. Fortunately for Scotland, 2011’s WPS Player of the Year Boquete is only 80% fit and did not play on Saturday. It was left to Sonia Bermudez (tricky left winger) and ‘no. 10’, though she played at no. 14, Jennifer Hermoso (an extremely technical player with an outstanding touch, even if her team mates didn’t read it) to try and unlock the stubborn Scottish defence. Centre back Rachel Corsie was an absolute rock and aside from being slightly culpable for Spain’s equaliser, captain Gemma Fay put in possibly one of her finest ever performances for her country with some vital double stops and some commanding second half handling. If Scotland stay calm, focused and can keep it tight whilst looking to use their tremendous pace down the flanks, if Kim Little can get on the ball and find support when Scotland try to attack quickly, if Jen Beattie gets the quality delivery from balls into the box – we will be having two fan parties (or one big one) in Sweden next summer!
It’s so nervy, it’s so exciting and it’s all to play for today. Kick off is at 5pm. We will be glued to Uefa.com matchtracker, twitter & will pass on any info of streams available.
Here’s what the coaches had to say after the 1st leg:
Anna Signeul had this to say after Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Spain.
“Yes, I’m disappointed. However, I think it was always going to be a difficult game but I’m disappointed that we didn’t get the penalty in the end because if she gave the other two then she should have given the third one. I don’t understand how you take the decision on the handball on Rhonda [Jones] and not that one. But this is football at this level and things like this happen.
“I think that we started quite nervously but that’s quite natural in a game like this, that means so much. They are a very skilful team and when they keep the ball so much and we couldn’t really get the ball in the first half – if you have the ball a lot you get more confidence. We picked it up after 15 minutes and we were playing better and then it was a shame that we conceded that goal after we had scored the first one.
“We maybe dropped a little bit deep in the first half but I think we corrected that in the second half. We got a little bit closer to them, we were a little bit too far off them and gave them too much space, we corrected that at half time and we pushed up our wingers a little bit higher.
“I thought Gemma made a fantastic save on the penalty. That was brilliant and I thought her second half was very, very good. I thought Rachel Corsie was brilliant today too. Rachael Small did very well against one of their best players as well. The midfield three of Jo [Love], Megan [Sneddon] and Kim [Little] did well too. It’s difficult, when we work so hard in defence to then be creative with energy and we could see that maybe that was a little bit lacking. Maybe we’re not used to giving the ball away so much as we did today.
“I think it was fantastic that we had almost 5,000. We thank all of the fans that came and supported us. Maybe the big occasion added to the nerves but they [the players] loved it and now the first time is over, so next time we will be better.
“I think the players feel like I do, bit of mixed feelings. We are disappointed because we knew we could do better, however, circumstances arise in these games, pressures that are on them, then we’re quite happy to go away with a 1-1 then because we know we can win. We know it’s marginal, it’s always going to be small margins in games like this. We are in a much better situation than four years ago, we just need to win 1-0 away and we know we can do that. I said that before, we knew that we could score against them. I think today that maybe in the final third our passing, finishing and decision making were not the best. However, I think that we showed that we can pla
y football, even if it wasn’t one of our best games.
“I think it will be a tough game on Wednesday but it is absolutely the same target we had this time. We know we can do it.
Spain’s coach Quereda was slightly more relaxed about the result, given that his side how have home advantage to look forward to and also an away goal. He said they would again work with left sided threat Sonia Bermudez, to improve her crossing and that they will aim to take their chances today. He also said this about Scotland:
“Scotland is a very good team, I’m quite impressed but at the end of the day, we dominated. Scotland showed the have strength down the centre of the pitch, they are good at stealing the ball but then we did well not losing the ball.
The game kicks off at 5pm GMT and you can view a live stream (with Spanish commentary) here: bit.ly/Xex3yM
#SCOTLANDPASSION
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