By Shannon Mcloughlan in France for City Media
Leanne Crichton made her FIFA Women’s World Cup debut on Wednesday night as Scotland bowed out of the tournament in the group stages.
Three City players played the full 90 minutes as Crichton impressed on her World Cup debut. Nicola Docherty was recalled back into the starting line-up and slotted back into left back and Lee Alexander retained her position in goal.
Scotland knew that nothing less than three points would potentially see them through to the knock-out stages of the tournament. The next round was on the horizon for the side as they got off to a dream start.
Kim Little opened the scoring for the side on the 19th minute. Former City star Erin Cuthbert saw her initial shot well-saved by the Argentina goalkeeper but she smashed a cross back across the face of goal on the rebound and Little stabbed the ball past the ‘keeper.
Jen Beattie doubled Scotland’s lead on the 49th minute with a close range header. Scotland looked to be on course for their first win of the tournament as Cuthbert put them 3-0 up on the 69th minute. City midfielder Crichton saw her header saved by the ‘keeper but Cuthbert was quick to react as she knocked home the rebound.
But two goals from Argentina within five minutes began to nerve the Scotland side as their hopes of progressing looked to be in doubt. Despite a hearty performance from the side a place in the knock out rounds wasn’t meant to be for the Scots as a controversial VAR decision saw Argentina tie the game to 3-3. City ‘keeper, Alexander, brilliantly saved Argentina’s first penalty attempt in stoppage time but a controversial and harsh VAR decision deemed her to have stepped off her line and forced a retake. Argentina made no mistake on the second time of asking as they ended Scotland’s dreams of progressing through to the knock out stages.
Despite not picking up a win throughout the tournament Scotland can come away proud from the tournament as they’ve created history. Five different players got their names on the goal scoring books for the side as they managed to find the back of the net in each of the three games they played in the national team’s World Cup debut.
Five City players were apart of the World Cup squad with Alexander, Docherty, Lauder and Crichton all collecting minutes across the tournament. A further six former City players, Rachel Corsie, Christie Murray, Lisa Evans, Jane Ross, Fiona Brown and Cuthbert, were also included in the squad with them all featuring in the tournament across the course of the three games.
