Almost a year ago, Martínez Losa sat down after a 6-0 home defeat to England and said he was still the man to take Scotland to the Euros.
It was a humiliating horror show at Hampden, but he was sure of himself. After tears on Tuesday, he continued to highlight his commitment to the cause and his faith in the squad.
Following the 2-0 defeat in Helsinki, he claimed Scotland are “on the brink of success”.
But since he took over, this team has grown in age and regressed in achievement.
“These players are playing in some of the best leagues in the world,” former Scotland captain Gemma Fay told Sportsound.
“What we haven’t been able to do is take those raw ingredients and build a winning team.
“I don’t like to speculate with people, so I won’t talk about Martínez Losa. The coach’s job is to take the team to an important final and he hasn’t achieved it.
“We should have already started and we haven’t.”
Instead of moving forward, they have gone backwards.
Only once has Scotland beaten a top 30 team in a competitive match under Martínez Losa: a 1-0 World Cup play-off semi-final against Austria two years ago.
In September 2023, Martínez Losa was rewarded with a contract extension until after the 2027 World Cup.
Eyebrows were raised at a decision that felt somewhat unearned and unnecessary. Now it’s starting to look ridiculous.
The head coach inherited a team with Caroline Weir, 26, Erin Cuthbert, 23, and Claire Emslie, 27. Very useful ingredients. But there is nothing to show after another choke at the decisive moment.
In this play-off final, Scotland were left ill-prepared, unable to recover from an inexplicably cautious 0-0 first leg in Edinburgh, which gave the Finns the initiative.
The noise around Martínez Losa’s position increased after the England coup but subsided during a nine-match unbeaten run this year. Now, it will go back up to the maximum.
