The Great Britain women’s football team have failed to qualify for 2024 Olympics despite England’s imperious win over Scotland.
England thrashed Scotland 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 Lauren James brace.
Fran Kirby added the fifth shortly after the break before Lucy Bronze 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 Dutch 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 Netherlands to score twice at the death to beat Belgium 4-0.
The irony that Scotland would have to lose to England in order to help some of their own players go to the Olympics was not lost on anyone, though in the build-up both sides strongly denied that the game would be ‘rigged’ for the benefit of Team GB.
‘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.’
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