Following his departure, Martinez Losa insisted he remained “immensely proud” of a three-and-a-half-year tenure throughout which he reckoned younger expertise had flourished.
A few days earlier than his exit, Actual Madrid midfielder Caroline Weir, who had deputised as captain throughout Rachel Corsie’s damage absence, additionally insisted Martinez Losa retained the “respect” of his squad regardless of a contemporary setback that had “hit so much gamers very laborious”.
Nevertheless, behind the scenes, there had been doubts inside the squad for a while, maybe since his very appointment, and lingering considerations about his aspect’s fashion of play.
The choice by midfielder Kim Little, in all probability Scotland’s best ladies footballer, to name time on her 140-cap worldwide profession on the age of 31 to focus on taking part in for Arsenal was an early blow to Martinez Losa’s tenure.
There have been nonetheless expectations {that a} aspect constructed round Weir, Chelsea midfielder Erin Cuthbert and a rising variety of gamers being exported to England and different high leagues would proceed to enhance.
Throughout Martinez Losa’s time in cost, although, he solely oversaw one aggressive win over a top-30 aspect – Austria within the 2023 World Cup semi-final play-off earlier than a shock loss at residence to Republic of Eire ended one other bid to achieve a serious event.
Satirically, Austria will probably be his successor’s first opponents, adopted by the Netherlands and Germany, because the Nations League begins in February.
The ultimate straw got here after the newest defeat by a Finland aspect three locations decrease within the rankings, albeit the relative positions have been skewed by the Scots’ current fixtures being in opposition to lesser opposition whereas Marko Saloranta’s aspect have been being relegated from the harder League A.
Former Scotland midfielder Leanne Crichton thinks questions have been all the time going to be requested given the Spaniard had been tasked with ending that main event drought.
“For Pedro, it was a combined bag,” she instructed BBC Scotland. “When you take a look at among the achievements and identification of the group, it began to vary and at factors it appeared actually constructive, however for any nationwide group supervisor, it is attending to main tournaments and, when you do not do this, finally it seems to be like a failure.
“On this planet that we dwell in now with soccer, there’s all the time an expectation that managers will lose their job if they do not ship the remit anticipated of them.”
Crichton suggests the SFA “will probably be on the lookout for somebody with the very best stage of expertise they’ll get”, which is prone to require the candidate to have Uefa professional licence, thus ruling out quite a lot of potential candidates.
“It leaves us ready of discomfort going into the brand new yr and leaves the powers at be having to seek out the precise individual fairly rapidly – and I hope the wheels are already in movement,” she mentioned.
“It must be an individual who has expertise, though not essentially at worldwide stage – an individual who’s a confirmed winner. Bringing all of the membership groups collectively – I feel that is going to be an enormous half and doubtless one thing that was an oversight beneath Pedro’s reign.”
