Women's World Cup: Scotland lose playoff first leg at home to Netherlands
Saturday 25 October 2014 21:19, UK
Scotland's hopes of qualifying for the Women's World Cup took a huge blow as they were beaten 2-1 by the Netherlands in the opening leg of their playoff semi-final.
An excited crowd turned out at Tynecastle to see if Anna Signeul's side could move one step closer to a place in the tournament in Canada, but it proved to be a generally disappointing evening for them.
They were swept away in the opening 45 minutes, during which the visitors did most of their damage to take the advantage into the second-leg in Rotterdam.
It took the visitors only 10 minutes to beat Gemma Fay, the Scotland keeper unable to react quickly enough after making a save as Lieke Martens side-footed home from close range.
Worse followed midway through the first-half when Vivianne Miedema was brought down in the box and Manon Melis made no mistake from the spot.
Fay saved well from Melis before the interval although signs of a second-half revival came just before the half-time whistle when Scotland star Kim Little had a shot deflected just wide of goal.
The Scotland improvement continued after the break with Lisa Evans and Frankie Fantom-Brown to the fore.
And it was Fantom-Brown who earned Scotland the chance to pull a goal back when her cross was handled by Stefanie van der Gragt, Little beating Loes Gurts from 12 yards.
Emma Mitchell came close to levelling the match but saw her effort agonisingly deflected over the bar and the Dutch almost killed off the tie with Melis forcing another fine save from Scotland captain Fay.
Melis hit the post in the closing moments as well but at least Signeul can take her side to the Netherlands knowing Scotland's deficit is not too big to overcome.
