Women’s Euros hopes in balance after Lisbon loss

SCOTLAND Women’s Euro 2022 hopes are hanging by a thread after they suffered a second consecutive defeat in their qualification campaign last night. And this loss in Lisbon would have been a hard watch for head coach Shelley Kerr, self-isolating back home after being identified as a close contact of a member of Scotland Under-21s’ backroom staff who tested positive for Covid. Both sides had failed to make the most of first-half chances before static defending by the visitors allowed Ana Borges to score midway through the second period. Erin Cuthbert and Martha Thomas had late chances to equalise but were denied by Portugal keeper Patricia Morais. The Scots are third in Group E, four points behind last night’s hosts and a Finland side who defeated them 1-0 last month. Now they simply have to beat the Finns in the second game of their double-header at Easter Road on Tuesday night, when Kerr will again be absent. Assistant Andy Thomson, who was standing in for the head coach, told the BBC: ‘We need to win all our three remaining games and, against Finland, it will be another tough game against a very aggressive and well-organised opponent. ‘If we move the ball swiftly in the way we did in the second half tonight, we will create chances and we just need to take them. ‘The players will pick themselves up. They are disappointed and devastated about the result, but they will feel they can qualify in some kind of way and they know they have to beat Finland. ‘We always knew this was going to be a difficult game against well-organised opposition. ‘It is difficult to create chances against them. I felt we did it on a number of occasions but we didn’t make the most of those opportunities and then conceded a poor goal. ‘At worst, we should have come out with a draw. It was very similar to Finland in performance. I’m happy with their effort, happy that we created opportunities, but you need to take them and we didn’t and got punished.’