Fiona Brown: We are all proud to be Scottish and to make our people proud

Controversy rained over Paris last night as a series of bewildering decisions affected the end of the Scotland v Argentina match.

One of the most surprising was that even though the fourth official held up a sign indicating four minutes of added time, the North Korean referee blew the final whistle just a minute later to the bemusement of both sides who didn’t seem to fully understand what had happened:

“I am honestly not sure. This is the first I’ve heard of not playing additional time, so I have no idea all I saw was her blowing the final whistle and that’s that. I was kind of unaware of what was happening at the time.”

However, despite the feelings that Scotland had been hard done by during the tournament, she refused to blame the decisions for their exit:

“I am honestly so proud of all the girls, we have really done so well on and off the pitch.

“We have had a very tough group to handle great teams and we dominated this game for 75 minutes, to lose a 3-0 advantage is absolutely devastating.

“Those are the moments where we may have lacked a bit of experience.”

She also gave credit to her opponents who had shown great resistance to keep their heads up as Scotland faltered:

“I mean its one of those ones we have to learn from, and moments like that on the world stage and you expect to be 3-0 up playing sailing against a top Argentina team and credit to them in the last 30 minutes for making it hard and coming back.”

Claire Emslie added:

“There’s four minutes left and then they just blew the whistle it doesn’t make sense.”

Brown: I think it’s a disgrace

Substitute Fiona Brown was at the centre of another controversy. In football sides normally make late substitutions and even save some to wind down the clock, as the game has to stop while it is being made.

Argentina restarted the game with a free kick before Brown was able to enter the play. She was fuming about the seven minute delay to decide the penalty and only four minute being added – and then not even played.

“I think it’s a disgrace to be fully honest. I think we are extremely unlucky not to get all three points from this game to progress.”

“The VAR took seven minutes and there was four minutes of stoppage time played which doesn’t really add up.”

Brown tried to get answers:

“I just asked her why have we stopped play now the game’s not over and she didn’t have anything to say.”

She was however optimistic about the effect that the tournament would have on women and girls in Scotland:

“Hopefully, this will change the game back home and inspire hundreds of kids and girls to play. With this being a huge moment for Scotland and hopefully we will not rest on this game and this result.

“All the special things we have done on this journey are hopefully what’s going to influence and inspire people back home.

“I am so proud of everyone and we are all proud to be Scottish and to make our people proud,” she concluded emotionally.

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