A common theme emerges in Scottish circles when major tournaments take place: a consensus that there is a need to dive for cover.
As many of the Scotland national team players share dressing rooms with those who have been front and centre at the Euros, there is the most pressing of needs for the bulky headphones that form part of the mandatory aesthetic for today’s athletes.
With noses pressed against the glass, hearing all about someone else’s party is just salt in the wound. Little wonder that players talk of taking to the heading off to other shores or, at the very least, turning the channel.
Scotland has watched three tournaments go by since they were last involved on a big stage.
Each time the lamentations and hand-wringing have followed a similar course.
England’s penalty shoot-out win over Sweden on Thursday night as they came back from the brink points to the possibility of Sarina Wiegman’s side going all the way again. So those headphones could well come in handy. Such parochialism, of course, does little to address the issues that Scotland have as they find themselves increasingly in the slipstream of a game where advances have made at significant speed elsewhere.
That these tournament moments have been in the rearview mirror for Scotland is more than just an obvious concern.
Melissa Andreatta is charged now with being the one to rectify the issue as autumn starts to loom closer and with it the map that will chart the journey required to make it to the next World Cup. With a bigger pool as the tournament goes from 32 teams to 48 as it looks to kick on commercially again from the last one in Australia and New Zealand, there is plausible scope that Scotland should get there.
And, ultimately, the pressure that is on the players is not solely to make it back to a major tournament.
The clear and obvious necessity of the national team being in amongst it is that the domestic game necessitates it. It is the only way that the SWPL will get a charge to electrify it, to plug into an energy that just simply isn’t there at the moment.
The galling thing is that it was. There was a moment immediately before the World Cup in 2019 when 18,555 spectators turned up to wave Scotland into the sunset. It felt like a new era, a bold chapter, the freshness and vibrancy of the moment, unlike any other snapshot within the women’s game before. Or since.
That ought to have been the starting point to jolt the game and take it to a level where Scotland could rub shoulders with the elite.
That it wasn’t is a column all of its own, but for no,w all shoulders need to be put to the World Cup wheel.
AND ANOTHER THING
Kirsty Maclean moving to the WSL with a move to Liverpool is both encouraging and concerning.
The positives are obvious, of course; a young, Scottish talent – still just 20 - who has been invited into a significantly better league to go and play at a higher level week in, week out. It can only be beneficial not just to Maclean but also for Scotland who stand to benefit from another player exposed to a more robust test week in, week out.
The concern comes when consideration is given to the cream of young Scottish talent cherry-picked and taken out of the SWPL. There is a suspicion that there will be more who follow Maclean – her former Rangers team-mate Mia McAulay at just 18 shows all manner of promise – while the likes of Emma Watson have already gone south.
For players, the WSL is the golden ticket. A chance to go and make a living and play at a fiercely competitive level against some of the best players in the game is the dream, a pathway that offers the milk and honey that the SWPL simply cannot compete with.
For the SWPL, it is a conundrum. One of the one hand it reflects well on the improvements in coaching and grassroots development that players are making the grade but on the other it impoverishes a league that is still working to make itself viable.
AND FINALLY
Elena Sadiku was back in the saddle this week after her stint in Switzerland covering the Euros.
The likelihood is that her inbox will require a crane-like effort to work through as Celtic try to prepare for a new season ten first-team players down.
Lisa Robertson has returned to the club, the only signing to date, with the midfielder a surprise addition this week.
The Scotland internationalist was supported through her pregnancy by Celtic before she gave birth to son, Lucas, in November 2023. It says much for Robertson that she forced herself back into that squad for the title run-in as Celtic won their first title.
No stranger to a demanding schedule – Robertson was a painter and decorator who used to ‘enjoy’ 5am gym sessions before work prior to full-time football – the Parkhead side will benefit from her experience and guile.
But as the clock seriously ticks down to the start of the season, Sadiku has some way to go before she can say that this is a squad fully ready for the demands of a campaign where they will be expected to go and properly challenge for the title.
As it stands, they have get to play a solitary pre-season game. Numerically, there would be a suspicion they don’t quite have the numbers yet to do so.
