SWNT: Serbia Preview

Relegation from League A may have been a reality check but it has also presented Scotland with an opportunity to build some much needed positive momentum.

In the brief pockets of time I’ve had available over the last week I’ve been trying to figure out how best to preview SWNT’s return to competitive action as they begin their Euro qualifying campaign away to Serbia in Leskovac this Friday.

I thought about form.

Scotland have not won a competitive game inside ninety minutes since a 6-0 victory over Faroe Islands in September 2022, the play-off first round victory against Austria the following month coming in extra time.

After a promising start to 2023 including impressive friendly wins against Australia and Finland, the Nations League campaign would be a reminder that Scotland are currently not ready to compete at the highest level, a relegation to League B is a chance to build new momentum.

A trip to Serbia, on paper at least, is the toughest assignment Pedro Martinéz Losa and his side will face but the Serbs have won just once in their last five games and they remained in League B after losing their Nations League play-off against Iceland, drawing at home before defeat in Kopavogur.

I thought about the respective squads.

Emma Watson and Caroline Weir are on their way back but not quite ready yet while the absence of Martha Thomas and Kirsty Hanson removes two of Scotland’s most potent attacking weapons at a time when they have started to feel thin on the ground.

Rangers’ Sarah Ewens could make her Scotland debut, anybody who has watched the women’s game over the last decade will tell you about her prowess but those same people may ask why 17-year-old teammate Mia McAulay, the latest Auchenhowie tuned youngster seemingly destined to take over the world, didn’t make the cut too?

At a time when Scotland fans are searching for excitement McAulay could have been seen as the latest symbol of an emerging generation, but perhaps that is a burden too far for one so young?

In goals will Sandy MacIver who, if the Pinatar Cup is to be used as an indicator of who’s hot and who’s not in the mind of Martinéz Losa, seems set to be number one be affected by her continued absence from game time at club level with Manchester City. She has not a played a minute since the penalty shoot-out loss to Finland so could Lee Gibson return?

Erin Cuthbert will once again be tasked with being the talisman but just how much can Chelsea’s “Wee Scot” have left in the tank as the demands of Emma Hayes’ final season in charge start to exert a physical and mental toll although there is little doubt she will give it her all.

Across the pitch Chelsea team-mate Jelena Cankovič will be a familiar face in the opposition side but the Serb has been used to plug the gaps for the current WSL champions while Sam Kerr will face familiarity too in Bayern Munich’s Jovana Damnjanovic, the 29-year-old attacking midfielder having scored seven times as the Bavarian club march towards an unbeaten season and the Frauen Bundesliga title. A midfield battle awaits.

Away from the big names a quick scan down both squad lists show two sides starting to look for regeneration as experience mixes with the experimentation of youth.

I thought about previous meetings.

There’s been one, a 1-1 draw in 2013. A friendly in which Rachel Corsie and Jane Ross would feature and Nicola Docherty would stay on the bench as Lana Clelland scored a 90th minute equaliser.

I thought about the fact that on Friday the game will not be broadcast live on TV.

It was a relief to learn that the game will be shown on iPlayer and the BBC Sport Scotland website, the news quietly footnoted in previews with two days to spare, but there is also a frustration that a late online solution is seen as enough. Whether the game being broadcast on pay TV in Serbia has had an impact only those looking for the resolutions will know.

Imagine though a world where Steve Clarke and his team had faced blackout this close to a European qualifier? Where are the political campaigns asking for the women’s game to be seen? Posturing about support still can often amounts to vacuous words over tangible actions. The players know they will have a responsibility to galvanise a nation, there’s a reality that the conversation only sings when the team are winning but is it not now that it needs the most support? When the need to go above and beyond is required, for SWNT it always feels like just enough.

SWNT supporters will be asked to flip open laptops and cast from mobile apps to stream feeds of their national side playing a competitive game (assuming they have access to do so) but football’s gift of bringing people together has been all but taken away. No watch parties can be planned, venues unable to promote a reason to come on down and diaries where the letters SWNT have been accompanied by a big fat question mark.

Despite continued digital growth appointment programming through traditional channels still carries significant weight. When Scotland faced Finland in the Pinatar Cup my local pub happily changed the channel, by the end of that penalty shootout the regulars were locked onto the screen. Today that potential for unexpected visibility will not exist.

After thinking about all these things only one remained. None of this new.

The form, the squad, the challenges with growth and coverage, in many ways these words could have been lifted, tweaked and slotted into the timeline at any time point over these last two years.

There is a fear that 2024 will end with a feeling of deja vu but there has to be belief that Scotland can turn it around again. Relegation from League A may have been a reality check but it has also presented Scotland with an opportunity to build some much needed positive momentum.

. . .

Scotland face Serbia this Friday. The game kicks off at 5pm UK time and is live on the BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport Scotland website before Slovakia come to Hampden next Tuesday with that one kicking off at 7:35pm.

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