GLASGOW City last night recorded one of their best wins in Europe when they swept Croatian champions Osijek aside in the Netherlands.
The Scottish champions were five up at half time against a club they only just squeezed past at the same stage of the Champions League last August.
City wasted no time going about their business and Love had already tested Ivana Vrodljak in the Osijek goal before she put her side ahead in the 20th minute. Her earlier effort had been turned past, but this time the Scotland midfielder scored.
Sarah Crilly, celebrating her recall to the national squad for the friendly against Serbia, made it two with a great lob and the early rout continued when Sue Lappin headed home a Leanne Ross corner to make it 3-0 after only 27 minutes.
It got worse for the Croatians when Love scored her second just after the half hour, meeting Suzanne Lappin's cross at the far post, then got a third after 35 minutes, this time with a powerful shot from outside the box into the top corner.
Although Lee Alexander in the City goal had been barely exercised during the first half, Mateja Andrilic nearly pulled one back when she hit the post. The goalkeeper then made a good save, tipping Maja Joscak's shot against the bar.
Love was taken off at half time to rest her for the next two matches, but her replacement Lisa Robertson kept up the good work scoring City's sixth 10 minutes after coming on. Then Crilly was denied by the bar as the Scots kept the pressure on.
Embarrassingly for the Croatians they conceded a seventh when Joscak fouled Lappin in the box, allowing acting captain Leanne Ross to score with only an hour on the clock.
The other match in the group resulted in a 6-0 win for FC Twente over Maltese champions Birkirkara, but in contrast to City five of the goals arrived in the last 30 minutes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article