International friendly: Morocco v Scotland

Venue: Stade Pere Jego, Casablanca Date: Friday 24 October Kick-off: 19:30 BST

Coverage: Watch on BBC iPlayer & BBC Sport Scotland website

Scotland are targeting a win and "progressive" performance against Morocco on Friday, but head coach Melissa Andreatta has warned "it's not going to be perfect".

The Australian says Friday's friendly - the first of four before the end of the year - is a "starting point" as the squad begin preparing for the 2027 World Cup.

Andreatta kicked off her reign with a defeat by Austria and draw in the Netherlands in a Nations League A campaign ending in relegation.

"I want us to continue to build on what we saw in the last window," she told BBC Scotland. "It is only my third game, so there's still progress to be made and I'm sure it's not going to be perfect, but the aim is to build on what we saw in the last game."

That impressive draw with the Dutch was even more eye-catching given the Scots were still on the Edinburgh tarmac 12 hours before kick-off.

And, while there was a change in stadium for Friday's game in Casablanca just two days before the game - from Stade El Arbi Zaouli to Stade Pere Jego, that has had "no impact" on preparations, Andreatta insists.

The build-up for this game has been far from ideal, again. But Andreatta's defiant words and ever-present ear-to-ear smile would show she is comfortable in chaos.

Part of the plan for the trip to Morocco was to mirror a potential journey at the next World Cup from the south to the north of Brazil and all the additional factors that come with it.

Along with her staff, the new head coach has certainly had plenty curveballs thrown at her, but the smile still remains.

"There is a fresh feeling," defender Nicola Docherty said of the camp. "You know us as a nation, as Scottish people, we're a really passionate, a positive group and Mel certainly emulates that.

"I don't think there's ever a time when she's not got a smile on her face, which I love.

"She loves being here and you can see that she really wants to drive us on and make us a successful nation."

The Australian's first chance at doing that is the World Cup qualifiers, which kick off in February. The draw for that is on 4 November.

Rangers captain Docherty is urging her team-mates to head into the qualification campaign with "confidence" from the upcoming friendlies, which sees Scotland host Switzerland in Dunfermline on Tuesday.

"As much as they are friendlies, we want to win," Docherty added.

"If you win matches, you're going to be going into these qualifiers fully confident, so the objective is definitely to win, but certainly to work on that performance as well."

Scotland head coach Melissa Andreatta: "They're going to be a tough opponent. They just finished second in their tournament in the summer and I think we need to be ready for that and give them the respect that they deserve, but also utilise our strengths and really be on the front foot with our game plan."

Scotland defender Nicola Docherty: "We're just looking forward to putting our performance on show.

"The things that we've been working on this week, the attention to detail has been fantastic, so we just want to try and get that onto the pitch and make sure it's a positive result."

This will be Morocco's first match since losing the Women's African Cup of Nations final in heartbreaking fashion in front of their own fans on 26 July.

Jorge Vilda's side were 2-0 ahead by half-time in Rabat thanks to goals from captain Ghizlane Chebbak, the 35-year-old from Levante, and fellow midfielder Sanaa Mssoudy of AS FAR, the club from whom Rangers bought their former striker, Hamza Igamane, and who also supply a fair proportion of the national women's squad.

However, three second-half replies secured the trophy for Nigeria and doomed the Atlas Lionesses to a second successive defeat in the final.

That loss meant Morocco dropped to 64th in the world rankings - 39 places below Scotland - despite having gone nine games without defeat, winning eight, up to that point.

Despite having never matched their high of 52 at the turn of the century, Morocco were 58th as recently as 2023, when they qualified from their World Cup group as Germany suffered a shock exit despite starting the campaign by thrashing the North African side 6-0 in Melbourne.

They would go on to lose 4-0 to France in the last 16.

Meanwhile, the Spain side then managed by Vilda topped that group before lifting the trophy amid much controversy.

After the 1-0 win over England in the final, Vilda was dismissed as head coach in the fallout from the scandal that led to the sacking of Luis Rubiales as Spanish FA president after the former Hamilton Academical defender kissed striker Jennifer Hermoso during the medal presentation.

Vilda was appointed Morocco head coach that October and his side remain the third-highest ranked in Africa behind Nigeria and South Africa.