Girls’s Nations League, Group A1: Scotland v Netherlands
Venue: Hampden Park, Glasgow Date: Tuesday, 25 February Kick-off: 19:30 GMT
Protection: Watch on BBC Scotland channel, iPlayer and BBC Sport web site plus comply with textual content updates on BBC Sport web site & app
Martha Thomas was recovering from damage when she acquired the message that will change her life.
On the time, she was a university senior in america finding out train science at Charlotte in North Carolina and present process rehabilitation from an anterior cruciate ligament damage.
”It’ll sound so random, however I truly received a LinkedIn message,” the 28-year-old striker recalled. “I had deliberate to place my identify into the NWSL draft, however after I did my knee, that fell by.
“There was a man attempting to recruit individuals with European passports who performed within the faculty system in America for Le Havre in France. So, having a European passport, I kind of flew up on his radar.
“They provided me an opportunity to go there and end my rehab after which taking part in a few months into the season. It was a extremely good alternative for me.”
Thomas spent most of her childhood rising up in South Florida, the daughter of a Scottish mom and English father, nevertheless it was in France when she started to assume she might have a profession in soccer.
”I noticed the chance that there was to play whereas being paid, it simply escalated from there and I completely liked it,” she stated. “I used to be like, I get to do that for a residing!
“I began taking part in and began actually having fun with myself and that is after I received picked up by West Ham. To go to one of many high leagues in England from Division 2 in France was an enormous bounce, nevertheless it was one I used to be actually excited for.”
Ideas of worldwide soccer had been nonetheless far off.
“I had actually low expectations for myself and simply wished to settle in,” she admitted. ”I used to be a no person in a means.
“I did not play for a nationwide crew – I got here from America. No-one actually knew who I used to be. I simply wished to get pleasure from myself and see the place it received me.”
It received her seen by Scotland head coach Shelley Kerr.
“I might performed for the US Beneath-23 crew, however when Shelley known as me in, I had simply missed that 2019 World Cup window,” Thomas defined.
“I feel I used to be on the first camp straight after that World Cup and, after that, it was kind of no trying again and it did not really feel like a call for me to make.”
Thomas scored twice on her debut in a 3-0 win over Ukraine in March 2020 and has gone on to attain 21 objectives in 42 appearances for Scotland.
She has moved from West Ham to Manchester United after which on to Tottenham Hotspur, selecting up FA Cup runners-up medals with the latter two.
Nonetheless, qualifying for the finals of a significant match with Scotland can be a profession excessive.
”I’d be 29 or 30 at that time and that will be the top of my profession if we might get there – and it is positively what I am hoping that this crew can obtain and attempt in direction of,” she stated.
A profitable Nations League marketing campaign would assist that ambition and the facet at present led by interim head coach Michael McArdle are already up in opposition to it after shedding their opener in Austria, earlier than internet hosting the Netherlands on Tuesday.
”It helps you might have a greater probability of qualifying in the event you keep in League A within the high few positions – it simply makes that pathway even higher for qualifying,” Thomas added.
“It is what we wish. We wish to play these high groups and show ourselves.”
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