A Level Playing Field is the No.1 destination for audio and written content on women’s football in Scotland. Their brilliant weekly podcast, hosted by Alison McConnell and Cheryl Smith, brings you closer to the players and stories shaping the game in this country. Every month Nutmeg FC will feature a collaborative article. Here, Alison considers the impact of Melissa Andreatta as head coach of the national team ahead of their World Cup round one play-off double-header tomorrow against the Czech Republic.
By Alison McConnell
Plenty of water has slipped under the bridge since 2019.
The Covid pandemic may well have been the most remarkable episode of recent times but the problem is that when it has come to major tournaments, Scotland have been self-isolating for the last seven years. In that period two European Championships and a World Cup have come and gone, each one commercially bigger and bolder than the ones that went before.
Not only that, but the disparity of growth in the women’s game across Europe has been equally notable. It was not so long ago — July 2017 — when Caroline Weir netted the only goal in a European Championships tie against Spain as Scotland took their first (and to date, only) win at a major tournament.
The Spaniards have kicked on and then some in the last decade, cementing their place as World Champions and establishing themselves as the force to be reckoned with in the women’s game; they are currently ranked first in FIFA’s rankings.
Scotland struggled to continue their ascent after the back-to-back success of making the 2017 Euros and the 2019 World Cup. If the expectation was that the nation was bearing witness to significant cultural change, to a bold new era with a women’s team taking centre stage, it floundered on the back of that 2019 tournament.
It feels like a different time. 18,555 supporters turned up to wave the team off from Hampden on the back of a pre-tournament friendly against Jamaica. Feature articles and opinion pieces were penned about the sea-change in mood towards the women’s game, to women’s sport, to what it meant, to what it would mean to the generation coming up behind them. The attendance that night was more than four times the previous record crowd of 4,098. Such was the buzz around the team and their achievements that even 20 minutes after kick-off, supporters were still trying to get into the national stadium.
Interest since then has, in the politest of terms, tanked. An insipid Euros campaign when a bad smell from the World Cup and its subsequent fall-out followed Shelley Kerr’s squad did not help. Scotland finished third in a group they had entered as favourites and completed the campaign with Lisa Evans suggesting there needed to be “more professionalism”. Off the field, the players started legal proceedings against the SFA before an 11th-hour agreement was eventually brokered nine months later. Few were privy to what the grievances were within the camp.
Then came a World Cup play-off campaign that took Scotland to the brink of Australia only for them to stumble in the play-off final at Hampden. Strain your ears hard enough and the Republic of Ireland’s songs of celebration will still be echoing deep in the bowels of the national stadium, such was their sheer glee that night as they qualified for their first major tournament at a wretched Scotland’s expense.
The next opportunity flitted through the fingers again. It came on a freezing night in Finland almost two years ago as Pedro Martinez Losa’s side lost their nerve and lost the game to find themselves once more out in the cold as entrance was denied to the European Championships.
That failure brought Melissa Andreatta to Hampden’s door. A breath of fresh air in many respects, the Australian is chirpy, upbeat and exudes a determined positivity in all exchanges. The evidence in her favour so far is substantial; having inherited a demoralised squad, she has steered them through this qualification campaign unbeaten and top of their group.
Their relegation from Nations League A meant that regardless of how good their journey was, a play-off route would be necessary to make it to Brazil next summer.
So, here they are. Scotland take on the Czech Republic tomorrow evening before hosting the return leg at the Marbill Coaches Stadium in Paisley on Tuesday night. There is a drive to fill the ground, substantially smaller and more intimate than Hampden, surrounds that can offer the jolt of energy that could carry them through this semi-final play-off tie.
Should they successfully negotiate these two games, they will play the winners of Sweden and Lithuania. One suspects Andreatta’s mortgage could go on the Scandinavians going through. It will raise the bar considerably. Ranked eighth in the world, they are one of the heavyweights of the women’s game. They took the bronze at the last two World Cups and have been involved in every iteration of this competition.
There will be ample time to worry about them if and when it happens. This week it is all about the Czech Republic. And Andreatta has been bullish about the challenge that lies in wait.
For a squad whose track record suggests they struggle when the pressure is on, the Australian has not opted to shy away from it but urged them, rather, to embrace it. Players of the ilk of Caroline Weir and Erin Cuthbert are well used to playing under a microscopic gaze given their club demands but as a collective there has been a sense of this team being inhibited when tournaments come into sharp focus.
“We don’t need to fear anyone,” insisted Andreatta. “A lot of that (mental) work has been done. The foundations of belief and confidence have been laid. Now it is all about looking forward and using one of our super strengths which is optimism. It is hard work, commitment and sticking to what we have been doing which will put us in good stead.
“We know we are ready and we believe we can surpass what is needed to get the outcome that we desire.”
Big tests lie ahead. The biggest ones for Andreatta so far.
Tickets for Tuesday’s second leg against the Czech Republic are still available here
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