Wherever she will be playing her club football next season, Weir will also now have her eyes on October and those hazardous World Cup play-offs.
As the third best League B winner behind Switzerland and Portugal, and ahead of Wales on goal difference, Scotland are ranked 19th going into the play-off draw on 24 June.
It means they avoid Poland, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine, who finished bottom of their League A groups and instead will face one of the League B runners-up or third-placed teams – that means Albania, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Israel, Northern Ireland, Slovakia or Turkey.
Win that two-legged play-off in October and they still have another one to traverse to reach the finals in Brazil – likely to be against one of the League A runners-up or third-placed sides.
England and Republic of Ireland are among the sides who will be favourites to progress against Group C winners.
That is a long way off and, although Weir would “kind of want to play them right now”, she hopes it means Cuthbert has enough time to make her return.
“It is a massive loss for us,” she said. “She’s such an integral player in the squad, not only on the pitch but off the pitch. She’s such a talent and such a leader.
“So we missed her tonight. We’ll be hoping her rehab goes well and she’ll be back, hopefully, come the play-offs.”
Weir, though, was “really proud of the team” in Cuthbert’s absence.
“Not just how we’re scoring goals, but the ruthlessness, the mindset, the professionalism of the whole squad,” she said.
As her head coach pointed out, after a tense finale, they fully deserve to be able to “draw a breath” while adding: “You’ve got to have a vision and you’ve got to have a dream and we’re living it.”







Leave a Reply