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Football - 27. October 2014.

Prolific Jane Ross eyes history for Scotland's Football

Jane Ross grew up on a small Scottish island without a single girls' football team. She did so at a time when the women's game in the UK, and in Scotland especially, remained a low-profile and overwhelmingly amateur pastime. Becoming a professional footballer, therefore, seemed not so much unlikely as virtually impossible. Still, though, she dreamed.

"It probably didn't seem the most realistic dream at that stage," she told FIFA.com. "There were so few professionals in Britain when I was growing up. But I knew from an early age that, if it was possible, I wanted to be a footballer. Now I can look back on what's happened and can say that it's been a dream come true for me. I'm doing what I always wanted to do, and doing it for a living."

And not only has Ross become a professional - she is thriving as one. Her club career has blossomed since a 2012 move to the Swedish Damallsvenskan, with Vittsjo GIK the club benefitting from her prolific scoring. And yet it is with Scotland's national team that the 25-year-old has been making the biggest impression of late. A haul of 13 goals from ten appearances has established her as Europe's joint-top scorer in the continent's FIFA Women's World Cup™ qualifiers, securing a play-off berth for Scotland while putting the likes of Lotta Schelin and Anja Mittag in the shade.

These achievements have not, however, come without plenty of sacrifice and single-mindedness. "I would be hard pushed to think of more dedicated individual," was how Ross's former Glasgow City coach, Eddie Wolecki Black, chose to pay tribute. And that dedication began on the Isle of Bute, population 6,000, at a tender age.

As Ross explained: "With Bute being so small and not having any girls' teams, I just used to go along to the local coaching clinic with the boys. That that was something I did until I was about 13, when I signed for a team in Paisley (a large town on the outskirts of Glasgow). My dad would take me over there twice a week to train and play with them, so that was 40 minutes on the ferry from Bute and then another 45-minute drive each way."

Our goal, as we've said all along, is to make it to the World Cup. That's not changed. Jane Ross
Such commitment is now paying off handsomely, with Ross having emerged as one of Europe's most talked-about strikers. Her free-scoring form has certainly been crucial to Scotland setting up a play-off semi-final with the Netherlands that, if successful, will take the country one step closer to its first-ever Women's World Cup. Not that she sees herself as anything more than a cog in Anna Signeul's well-oiled machine.

"It's pleasing to have scored so many goals and to feel I'm doing my bit for the team," she said. "But the goals only matter if the team performance is also there and that's been the case for Scotland over recent years. I'm only one part of what's been going on. One of the big differences now is that we have strength in depth through the team and there are lots of talented, creative players who'll be able to cause Holland problems.

"It's already been a positive campaign for us, winning eight of our ten matches, and we're really looking forward to these upcoming games. They'll be challenging - we know that. We've come up against the Dutch a few times, mainly in the Cyprus Cup, and they're a very technical and fast team. But our goal, as we've said all along, is to make it to the World Cup. That's not changed."

Ross and her team-mates will also go into this play-off, the first leg of which takes place at Hearts' Tynecastle Stadium tomorrow, having learned the hard way just how cruel these ties can be. The Scots, after all, were within seconds of qualifying for the UEFA Women's EURO two years ago when Spain, with the last kick of the final second of extra time, denied them in the most heartbreaking fashion.

"We've learned from that," vowed Ross. "Just the experience of those kind of matches - play-offs are probably as high-pressure as they come - will give us a great understanding of what we're in for. Experience is a massive thing in football and we feel that we're stronger as a team now than we've ever been. That play-off hurt massively at the time but we're looking to the future. It's all about Holland now and creating new, better memories for everyone in Scotland."

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