Scotland 2-1 Venezuela - Players are mastering 'modern football' - Pedro Martinez Losa
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'Scotland are still alive' - Pedro Martinez Losa
Pedro Martinez Losa says two victories in three days show his Scotland side are mastering "modern football they had not played before" despite missing out on the 2023 Women's World Cup.
Monday's 2-1 win over Venezuela followed a 2-0 defeat of Panama in an under-23 game, both in Cadiz.
They were the first matches since losing their World Cup play-off against Republic of Ireland.
"I think that the progress is very evident," Scotland's head coach said.
"Two victories were important to keep believing in what we are doing. They sent a message out that we are still alive, we are here, we are still progressing."
Martinez Losa has spoken before of how he has been in the process of "creating a new, total football style in a short period of time" and believes their play is now evidence of that.
"And it can be used for the future generation and for the transformation of the game in Scotland," the Spaniard, who has been in charge since last summer, said.
"Progress is when you arrive to a job in August and you only have until September to start putting together a team. You have very limited time to try to implement ideas to make this team play modern football they had not played before.
"Now we are mastering many contexts in the game - defending low blocks, counter attacking, recovery runs, set plays, in possession, we are at the highest level of the women's game in many contexts."
'Take positives from the past and move on for future'
Martinez Losa admits that the pain of losing to the Irish will remain with him and his players for some time and that last month's breakaway winner at Hampden showed they still had areas to improve.
"It is true that, in the last game, we had difficulties in one of the contexts and we also have to give credit to the opponent who prepared well," the former Arsenal Women boss said.
"We cannot control everything in the game, but we managed to put this team second in the group, which was our place, we managed to win against an opponent like Austria, which is one of the best teams in Europe and higher in the rankings. And then we managed to prepare, within three days, after playing an extra time, another game at Hampden where I think we should have won the game, but these kind of things happen in football and we didn't."
Martinez Losa was pleased that his side had shown up well against "two teams who defend very deep with a low block, very organised, trying to counter attack and also a defensive line of five players" in a similar way to the Irish.
Rangers midfielder Brogan Hay and Heart of Midlothian midfielder Rebecca McAllister earned their first caps as substitutes against Venezuela and, with no competitive fixtures until September, Martinez Losa said it will be "very important" to "refresh" the squad with more young players in the months to come.
"I also want to show respect and a lot of recognition for who has been here before in terms of coaches, in terms of players," he added. "I think we have to take the positives from the past and move on for the future."