PARDUBICE — Erin Cuthbert marked her first appearance of the season with joy and relief as Scotland seized control of its Women's World Cup round-one playoff with a 2-0 away win over the Czech Republic in Pardubice. Captain Caroline Weir opened the scoring with a superb strike before fellow substitute Claire Emslie sealed the victory, leaving Scotland well set for the return leg in Paisley on Tuesday with Sweden the likely opponent for the winner.
Chelsea captain Cuthbert, 28, has yet to feature at club level this season following a knee injury and came on as a substitute to help close out the first leg. "It's so good," Cuthbert told BBC Scotland. "It's been such a long summer. It's always great to come on and play for my country again - I'll never take it for granted when I get a serious injury." She added, "I'm just glad to get back on a football pitch. The relief, the amount of self-doubt that you have, the amount of stress - am I going to be back to the same level, how am I going to perform, is my knee going to be alright? All those things run through your head."
"It was a bad one. I was in crutches and a brace for the best part of a month. I lost a fair amount of muscle and over the summer I was trying to rebuild all of that again," Cuthbert said. "It's been a really, really hard journey." Scotland's second goal came from Emslie, who scored her first goal since becoming a mum with her son and mother in attendance in Pardubice. "I'm incredibly proud of her," Cuthbert said of Emslie. "I have an enormous amount of respect for her. Everything's just so impressive - to be a mum, to play at the highest level."
The Czech Republic were given a late reprieve when the award of a penalty was overturned, but Cuthbert was left "flabbergasted" that a late challenge on her in the box did not result in a spot-kick. While delighted with the result, she cautioned that a 2-0 lead can be "dangerous." "We're a good team and when we play on the front foot, we can hurt teams," she added. "The best form of attack is defence."