Pedersen pounces for Denmark

Merete Pedersen showed a cool head to give Denmark an important UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2009™ qualifying Group 5 win in Scotland.

Narrow win
The visitors only began their campaign on Saturday with a 5-1 defeat of Portugal while Scotland had moved to four points from three games by winning 3-0 in Slovakia. Julie Fleeting scored her 100th goal for Scotland in that match but her hopes of success as she reached a century of caps in Perth were dashed by Pedersen, who took her own tally of strikes to 58 from 121 appearances.

Scotland denied
Scotland kept things very tight in the first half and nearly went ahead in the 42nd minute when their most-capped player, Pauline Hamill, went close. However, Denmark made the breakthrough just past the hour through Pedersen and Scotland could not carve out an equaliser.

Play-off
Denmark are now within three points of Ukraine, who have also won all their games so far, with Scotland two behind the Scandinavian side having played two more matches. Denmark go to Slovakia and welcome Scotland for their next qualifiers in April, but first face a two-legged play-off against Sweden for a place in the 2008 Olympics on 8 and 28 November, the opening leg at home.