Scotland maintained their unbeaten record to remain top of Group B4 in World Cup qualifying with a frantic goalless draw in Belgium.<\/p>\n
In their second meeting in four days, the Scots were eyeing up a statement win against the top seeds, and though they started brightly, they failed to trouble Nicky Evrard in goal.<\/p>\n
The same could not be said for Sandy MacIver, however. Slackness in possession paved the way for Hannah Earlings to go close from inside the six-yard box.<\/p>\n
A deep free-kick was allowed all the way through to MacIver, who just got a fingertip to it, before Jasmien Mathys knocked an effort off the left upright.<\/p>\n
In and among a chaotic first half, classy visiting captain Caroline Weir had a few near things but it was after the break the visitors’ big moments came.<\/p>\n
Kathleen McGovern, who levelled for the Scots in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw, was free to smack in a shot in the centre of the box but blazed over and she skewed another golden opportunity wide with 10 minutes to go.<\/p>\n
Melissa Andreatta’s side had the bit between their teeth and forced The Red Flames into some frenetic last-ditch defending in a crowded six-yard box.<\/p>\n
The Belgians were largely second best as the match wore on but had threatened when Mariam Toloba’s header was well tipped over by MacIver.<\/p>\n
The stalemate means Scotland top the table before the final double header with Israel, above the Belgians – who next play Luxembourg twice – on goal difference.<\/p>\n
With eight points, both Scotland and Belgium are guaranteed play-off places while Israel, after a second successive win over Luxembourg, are also through to the next stage.<\/p>\n
The side that finishes top will be seeded in the play-offs and will be promoted to League A in the next edition of the Nations League. Luxembourg will be relegated to League C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scotland maintained their unbeaten record to remain top of Group B4 in World Cup qualifying with a frantic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-538463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}