TEN months ago, with an away-goals victory over Spain one blow of the referee's whistle away, an extra-time winner with the last kick ended Scotland's dream of reaching the European Championship finals in Sweden.
Scotland captain and goalkeeper Gemma Fay was, like her team-mates, left numb, and potentially questioning her future in the game.
"It was perhaps fortunate I had some time out because I'd picked up a slight knee injury," said the Perth-born sportscotland partnership manager, who makes her screen debut next month in a Sky drama, as a female football referee turned plus-size model. "It gave me time to sit down and reflect. I'm still only 31, not too far over the hill, but I've been playing a long time and it does take its toll.
"Ultimately, I decided I've still got the desire, hunger and passion. I still want to get up early every morning and train, still want to do the late nights."
Tonight the Scots begin their latest quest to reach a major championship finals - something they have never done. This time the target is the 2015 World Cup in Canada. Scotland's first opponents in Group 4 are the Faroe Islands at Torsvollur, followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina at Fir Park on Thursday night.
This will be the first World Cup campaign for the Faroese, who had to come through a three-game preliminary round to qualify for Group 4, but any hint of Scottish complacency will be removed by recollection of the men's team being held to draws in 1999 and 2002. Nevertheless, six points from the opening two games against the group's lowest-seeded nations has to be the expectation.
The other teams Scotland will face are Northern Ireland, Poland and the favourites and top seeds Sweden. So scarce are the European places for Canada that only the seven group winners are guaranteed to qualify. One of the runners-up will join them following a four-nation play-off.
Sweden are ranked fifth in the world and have long been one of the top women's sides, but Fay believes her side, at an all-time high of 20th in the Fifa rankings and 11th in Europe, can succeed. "We know it's going to be difficult," she said, "but at some point we're going to have to beat the difficult teams. We know from our results this year that we can beat the top sides in Europe, or indeed the world. I believe we are going to go to Canada.
"I feel like I've got unfinished business with this squad. As long as Anna [Signeul, the Scotland coach] believes I'm the right person to do the job, and as long as I feel that myself, I'll keep going. As soon as that's not the case it's time to move on. I'm just focusing on the qualifying campaign. There's no guarantee I'm going to be starting either match because I never take that for granted, no matter how many games I've played."
Fay has a record 158 caps. A very capable deputy in Shannon Lynn of Hibernian is patiently awaiting her chance, but Fay is not ready to hand over the gloves just yet.
Faroe Islands v Scotland (Torsvollur, Torshavn, 6.15pm tonight); Scotland v Bosnia-Herzegovina (Fir Park, Motherwell, 7.35pm Thursday)
Both games are live on BBC Alba
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