JILL Scott is confident England’s women footballers will not suffer a post-Olympic hangover when they play their decisive final European Championships qualifier this evening.

England take on Croatia at Walsall’s Bescot Stadium knowing a win will guarantee them a place in next summer’s Euro finals in Sweden.

The game comes little more than a month after the majority of Hope Powell’s squad suffered the disappointment of an Olympic quarter-final defeat to Canada as part of Team GB.

But Sunderland-born Scott is confident there will be no Olympic fall-out as the international calendar resumes.

“It’s a massive game,” said the England midfielder, who was involved in all of Team GB’s matches at the Olympics. “If we win we know we’ll have qualified for Euro 2013 and if we don’t we’ll have to go through a gruelling play-off.

“In the past, when you’ve been involved in a big tournament like the Olympics, a World Cup or the Euros, there’s a hangover period.

“You train really hard to get to the tournament and there’s a come down when it’s all over, but the tempo has been really good in training and it doesn’t seem to have affected any of the players.

“The club season started straight after the Olympics so I suppose there hasn’t been much time to reflect on what could have been.”

The Olympic women’s football programme captured the public’s imagination, and Scott has noticed a marked upsurge of interest into her domestic side, Everton.

Tonight’s qualifier will be televised live on BBC Two, with the women’s game continuing to grow its support base, a development that would be aided by qualification for next summer’s finals.

“The Olympics definitely had a positive influence,”

said Scott. “For Everton’s match against Liverpool there were 1,500 people at the game whereas before that we were getting about 300, but it’s about sustaining it.

“It’s fantastic that the qualifier is being shown live and hopefully we can keep getting more television coverage.

“Once we start playing we won’t be thinking, ‘This is on television’, but it’s good people can watch at home and have an opinion on the game because usually you have to tell them what the score was.”