Pedro Martinez Losa, the Scotland manager, saw his side get back to winning ways yesterday afternoon with a 2-0 win over the Philippines that was played against a freak Spanish wind.
If it made for an uncomfortable 90 minutes, this was a far more welcoming environment than the Nations League campaign where Scotland slid into League B after failing to win a game.
A first-half brace from Martha Thomas was sufficient for Scotland to claim a place in Tuesday’s final with Martinez Losa expressing a sense of relief that there was more purpose and aggression about Scotland in the final third.
He was not the only one who would have felt a weight lifted; this was Thomas’ first international goals since July last year. She and Jane Ross shared the striker’s role with each given 45 minutes, a plan that Martinez Losa had discussed with them prior to yesterday’s game kicking off.
“It was good for Martha to get those goals,” said Martinez Losa. “We spoke to both Martha and to Jane before the game and discussed what the plan was.
“Jane has been out for a very long time with an extremely serious injury. We are so pleased to have her back in the camp and back fully fit and it was fantastic for her to get some minutes against the Philippines.
“We spoke a lot before the game about wanting to be better in the final third. I am not saying we are fully there yet but I think we saw that, even in very challenging conditions, that we were trying to balls into the box, trying to be more aggressive in front of goal and on another day I think we may well have scored more.
“It is not a problem that will be solved quickly but it is important that we are building towards that and there were definitely improved elements that I was satisfied with.
“It was like a hurricane out there,” he said. “It is easily the worst conditions that I have overseen a game in.
“But that is football and these are things that you cannot control. I thought that the players handled that aspect really well.”
And the Spaniard also accepted that the win was necessary ahead of the April European Championships campaign kicking off.
“It was important for us to reconnect again,” he said. “I could sense the confidence growing again over the last few days and it was important for us as a group to get that win.”
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