Scotland’s coach Pedro Martínez Losa and top scorer Sophie Howard took the EC play-off loss suffered by Helmarii hard.
Scotland Women’s Football Coach Pedro Martínez Losa had to explain the failed project of the EC final tournament place.
Finland, which is ranked 26th in the women’s Fifa ranking and three places lower than Scotland, advanced to the European Championship final tournament with 2–0 on aggregate.
The setback was made especially sad by the fact that Scotland was left out of the women’s European Championships for the third time in a row.
The Scotland coach said he was still motivated despite the goal not being met. Last fall, he signed a four-year contract extension.
The main reason for the poor result and goalless matches in Finland seemed to be the icy pitch of Töölö’s artificial turf.
– I don’t know how you can teach players to play on a frozen field, other than by playing on it. The ball was moving really fast.
– They (Finland) are used to playing in these conditions, it was especially visible in the first minutes of the match. It caused us to “adjust” at first and contributed to the first goal, Losa explained Scotland’s bad start to the match to the BBC.
According to the coach, the players’ insecurity on the field initially led to the fact that Finland’s topper Natalia Kuikka was able to move too freely with the ball and shoot a great goal in itself from about 27 meters.
– My honest opinion is that it (in the further qualifiers) was about two completely separate events. The field was frozen here, so the conditions were difficult, the bitter-sounding coach continued.
‘s football expert Hanna Ruohomaa found the Scottish coach’s comments strange.
– It’s cold in Scotland, it’s raining and it’s snowing. These conditions could not surprise them in any way.
Ruohomaa said that his ears are ringing as if Scotland had some open positions in the game, but they didn’t succeed.
– He was on the field in Scotland, for example Erin Cuthbertwho is even nominated for this year’s Fifa world team in the midfield, but he didn’t put the ball in the net from places.
Scotland won the goal attempts 20–7 and corner kicks 15–2 in the second qualifying round.
According to coach Pedro Martínez Losa, “life is not always fair”.
– After all, this is frustrating and painful, and it will be painful for a long time to come.
Defender Sophie Howard admitted that the result was a huge disappointment.
“Football is cruel sometimes and tonight it just didn’t work for us.” I think we would have deserved a victory with today’s performance, saw Howard.