Euro 2017: Scotland's women qualify for first major tournament

Scotland women celebrate
Scotland have lost just once in their qualifying group

Scotland women have qualified for their first major championship after Finland lost to Portugal.

Anna Signeul's side can finish no worse than second in their Euro 2017 qualifying group and are now assured of one of the six best runners-up spots.

It means next week's final group game with Iceland will simply be to determine who finishes top.

The finals will be in the Netherlands next year, with the games played from 16 July to 6 August.

From the SFA Twitter account
From the SFA Twitter account

Scotland women's first internationally recognised match was a 3-2 defeat to England in November 1972.

Since then, they have tried and failed on 13 occasions to make it to a tournament finals - seven European Championships and six World Cups.

They reached the play-off stage in trying to qualify for the 2009 and 2013 Euro finals and the 2015 World Cup.

In the 2009 European Championship play-offs, they turned around a 3-2 home defeat to win 2-1 in Nalchik but went out on the away goals rule.

The current campaign started with a 3-0 win away to Slovenia followed by 7-0 and 10-0 home wins over Belarus and Macedonia, respectively.

Slovenia were beaten again, 3-1 in Scotland, before Signeul's team sustained their first Group 1 defeat by Iceland, 4-0.

However, Jo Love's goal gave the Scots a narrow win in Belarus to take them on to 18 points from seven matches.