The Great Britain women’s football team have failed to qualify for the 2024 despite ’s imperious win over Scotland.
The Lionesses thrashed 6-0 at Hampden Park on Tuesday night in their final Nations League group game.
The Lionesses blew away the opposition in the first-half, roaring into a 4-0 lead courtesy of goals from Alex Greenwood and Beth Mead either side of a two-minute brace.
Fran Kirby added the fifth shortly after the break before completed the rout with the last touch of the game.
But it was not enough as England’s victory needed to be by at least three more goals than the Netherlands, who were playing belgium in the other group game, in order to keep Team GB’s chances of qualifying for the Paris Olympics alive.
As the games entered injury time, it seemed as if they had done the impossible, only for the Dutch to score twice at the death to beat Belgium 4-0.
‘Devastated. We could everything we possibly could,’ Mead said post-match.
‘Unfortunately it wasn’t in our hands. Credit to the Netherlands who got the four goals. That’s football. Small margins. Late goals. It wasn’t meant to be.
‘It’s a tough one. The girls have worked really hard. The girls have worked really hard this camp but we let ourselves down earlier on in the competition.
‘We made sure we knew that the information was fed into us, Sarina [Wiegman, England manager] made sure we knew what was happening, and we knew what we were supposed to do.’
, though in the build-up both sides strongly denied that the game would be ‘rigged’ for the benefit of Team GB.
Scotland head coach Pedro Martinez Losa made that point very clear after the game, clearly unhappy with his side’s performance, telling BBC Scotland: ‘Very disappointed and very frustrated. I want to apologise to the fans.
‘This is not the level we expected. Especially in the first half, we totally lost concentration. I also give credit to England, I thought they were excellent.
‘We had chances to get back in the game but it was very difficult. It was a tough night for our players. I want to take full responsibility because I know how hard the players work for us but today it was not enough.’
, . , and .
