Scotland's Euro 2025 failure is a wake-up call

Scotland fail to qualify for a third successive major tournament after heartbreaking play-off defeat to Finland

A drab 0-0 at home followed by a 2-0 loss in Finland has left Scotland out of Euro 2025 and resigned to a third successive major tournament failure.

It’s head coach Pedro Martinez Losa’s second qualifying play-off loss and the pressure is now on the SFA to end the four-year contract they handed him in September 2023.

Since Martinez Losa's appointment key backroom staff have been appointed to full-time jobs elsewhere while retaining their Scotland role, the promise of playing women's national team games at Hampden has been walked back, and Scotland have lost in playoff finals to "smaller nations" in Ireland and Finland. Also in that time, Scotland’s biggest rivals England have smashed them 6-0. This is not all on Martinez Losa's head, but it has cultivated an atmosphere of apathy and negativity with fans losing faith in the set up as a whole.

Many of Scotland's problems are long serving and deep but the worst of the Martinez Losa era was typified within this play-off final.

The biggest criticism comes in his reluctance to give opportunities to younger players and take league form into account in his selections, with two baffling selections from the Spaniard illustrating this. Kirsty Smith has only played 108 WSL minutes so far this season for 11th-placed West Ham but played 159 minutes for Scotland this international break. Whilst Rachel McLauchlan (252 minutes for 3rd-placed Brighton) didn't see a single minute of action.

At the other end of the pitch, Martha Thomas, who hasn't scored a league goal for Spurs this season, came into camp with a sickness bug, yet the Scotland boss chose not to call up another striker. In the SWPL there are three Scots under 23 who have scored double figures goals this season (Eilidh Adams, Kathleen McGovern and Laura Berry) but all of them were overlooked for this squad. Emma Watson, usually a midfielder, was used as an emergency forward in both legs.

The other big Scotland problem has been slow, sloppy play marring games against difficult opposition, something that was evident in both legs against Finland. Head coach Marko Saloranta even told the media after the first leg that he was surprised at how passive Scotland were in the first leg, a warning sign that was not heeded by the Scotland coaching team. Both of Finland’s goals came from Scotland sitting deep and not pressuring the ball with two long-range strikes finding the back of the net, with no Scotland presence to unsettle the striking players.

Scotland’s only plan in attack appeared to be to go sideways until a crossing chance opened up. This led to a number of corners that inexplicably went short the majority of the time, despite the height of Jenna Clark and Sophie Howard. Those short corners appeared entirely unplanned, or at least under prepared, with no fluid "from the training ground" moves materialising.

Martinez Losa did nothing to help his cause, telling the BBC after the second leg defeat on Tuesday night: "I thought that the team played excellently". Not even the most Tennent’s-influenced Scotland fan could find themselves agreeing with that statement.

The post match reaction only adds more pressure on a manager that many believe should be removed immediately. I’ve had closer look at who could replace him if he is dismissed.

A review of women's football has to be undertaken by the SFA after this failure, but they have their own issues to face. There has been no progress on equal pay despite many nations of similar and smaller size committing to it. The national team backroom staff have full-time jobs elsewhere, some within SWPL teams which raises questions over conflict of interest. The Under-23 side has been established but do not have regular fixtures nor a staff and national team attendances are trending down while regular weekly attendances are on the rise throughout the domestic game. The change must be deeper than just the head coach.