Moving Forward with McArdle

With Euro 2025 unfortunately set to go on without Scotland this summer after the playoff defeat to Finland last year, and Pedro Martinez Losa now working in Mexico, we’re into a new era for the women’s national team. Whilst there’s still no sign of a new head coach on the horizon, the start of the latest Nations League campaign will go ahead under the watchful eye of Michael McArdle.

McArdle is already a familiar face in the Scotland setup of course, given he’s spent the last couple of years as head of the elite women’s football at the SFA. His first squad has seen a number of new faces, with Celtic’s Emma Lawton, Hearts’ Eilidh Shore, Hibernian’s Eilidh Adams, and Newcastle United’s Freya Gregory all called up for the first time as well as Hibernian’s loanee from Glasgow City Erin Clachers and Rangers’ Mia McAulay yet to be capped too.

Unfortunately, one familiar face in Erin Cuthbert is going to miss out on this first double header as she withdrew from the squad due to injury, joining captain Rachel Corsie who is still to return from the injury that kept her out of the later Euro 2025 qualifying matches.

Losa’s time at Scotland ended in disappointment, with the last outing in Finland finishing 2-0 to the hosts and allowing them to take their place in the finals in Switzerland.

However, the legacy he leaves behind is a campaign that saw a return to Nations League A after winning the Euro 2025 qualifying group. The double header against Germany will come later this year, and Netherlands will be the first visitors next week, but the campaign starts this evening at 5pm oor time over in Austria.

For completeness, Netherlands host Germany in the other match in our group at 19:45 oor time.

The last time Scotland faced Austria was in the playoffs for World Cup 2023, with Abi Harrison scoring in extra time to give Scotland the crucial 1-0 win that took them through to the final playoff against the Republic of Ireland.

The last time Scotland faced Austria outside of Scotland was in the 2017 Cyprus Cup, where Jane Ross, Leanne Ross and Lisa Evans all scored in a 3-1 win in Larnaca.

You have to go back to September 2001 to find the last visit to Austria. In World Cup 2003 qualifying, Scotland came from behind to win 2-1 thanks to goals from Donna James and Mhairi Gilmour. The other game that campaign was a 5-0 win at Almondvale. A Julie Fleeting hat trick as well as goals from Stacey Cook and Pauline Hamill. There’s no footage of these games though than I can find.

That’s the entire list of the times that the two sides have met. Four games, four Scotland victories, albeit the most recent was after extra time.

Austria aren’t making the short journey to Switzerland this summer for the Euros either. They finished in third place in their qualifying group, beating Poland home and away and also getting a draw at home against Iceland, but they lost away to Iceland as well as home and away to Germany.

Here’s the home win over Iceland.

In the playoffs, they beat Slovenia 3-0 away and then 2-1 at home to advance to the final 5-1 on aggregate. However, there they faced Poland once more and despite winning both games in the group against them, Austria lost 1-0 in both legs of the playoff, meaning Poland will be at the Euros for the first time.

Here’s the highlights from the second leg against Poland in Austria.

Austria have been mainstays in League A so far, having finished second behind France in the inaugural Women’s Nations League in 2023. There they lost home and away to France, but beat Iceland and Portugal at home, whilst also beating Portugal away and drawing away to Norway.

After tonight’s game, the second round of fixtures takes place on Tuesday. As mentioned earlier, Scotland host the Netherlands whilst Austria are away to Germany. But more on that next week.

Good luck to Scotland this evening!