At 5'30" of 6 minutes of additional time Italy almost scores! A good action by Agnese Bonfantini is almost slammed into her own goal by a Norwegian DF, but it hit the lower part of the crossbar instead! So it's Norway 0-0 Italy, FT, fair result. Now we need a good old draw between Netherlands and Finland, later in the evening, to leave everything level in group A1.
Good game from Italy with a draw away and dominating the game playingwise.Agree Galli did a good job,but must confess it irks me a bit that she choosed playing in a lower half team in England over the champions of the Italy at that time and the signals it sent, anyway it was also a kinda bold move and Galli may have taken valuable english experience to the NT. As long as not too many italians do that kind of move I'm ok. Anyway enough with grumpiness , I look forward to your review of the game blissett!
Actually, when I follow and live-comment a match of the National Team, I don't use to make an extensive review after it as the ones I make for the league matches, being content with what I wrote during the game. Anyway, what I can say is that it looked like Andrea Soncin came in Norway with a clear plan: at the beginning I was perplexed with the idea of not starting Manuela Giugliano, but in retrospect it could have been a good idea to save her for the home match. Starting a midfield of high-rate hard-workers as Arianna Caruso, "perpetual-motion" Giada Greggi and especially Aurora Galli, instead of a finesse one, was functional to the plan of stifling Norway's attacks with a very high pressing-line, as seen multiple times with our FWs (especially Barbara Bonansea, but also Sofia Cantore and Valentina Giacinti) making difficult for Norwegian defense to back-pass and to build the actions from the back. Of course, this plan needed a midfields of "disrupters" and Aurora Galli in particular, as I mentioned during the game, was the perfect woman for that (to the point that she even earned a well-deserved Yellow Card in the 2nd Half): I hadn't liked her much in previous games (under Andrea Soncin or under Milena Bertolini), when she was played as a more advanced Midfielder (or even as a Winger! ); she's apparently at her best in this kind of set up, instead. That's basically all I have to say about yesterday's match. It was a shame that the last chance with Agnese Bonfantini didn't go in, but actually I feel it would have been a little too much: a draw is a more fair result. In Italy (Ferrara) on Tuesday I expect a more proactive midfield to start, mostly made with today's subs (Manuela Giugliano, but maybe also Giulia Dragoni, who looks way more mature than her actual age). Having a fit Manuela Cambiaghi would be optimal, but actually I don't have too many objections to today's FW-line.
Of course it's Michela Cambiaghi and not Manuela ; Despite having studied philology I fell to a classic trap for the scriveners: I had written Manuela Giugliano in the previous line and the rhyme Manuela/Michela caught me.
Italy-Norway going to start; I won't have much time to interact here, but I give you the starting line-ups: Italy (4-4-2): Giuliani; Di Guglielmo, Linari, Lenzini, Bartoli; Dragoni, Caruso, Giugliano, Bonansea; Bonfantini, Giacinti. Norway (4-3-3): Fiskerstand; Thorisdottir, Bergsvand, Harviken, Hansen; Boe Risa, Engen, Saevik; Graham, Terland, Reiten Nice that both Manuela Giugliano and Giulia Dragoni are starting as I had predicted.
And Manuela Giugliano makes the difference: she scores after 5' minutes perfectly played by Italy with a very aggressive pressing (it even wasn't the only good offensive action in so little time!)
17 yo Giulia Dragoni is being absolutely impressive, in this first half-hour: she doesn't miss a single pass; she doesn't lose a single ball. Italy are actually dominating the game, but they're spending a lot of energy with a very aggressive pressing: a second goal would make things smoother for the rest of the game, since Italy can't probably go on this way the whole time. Barbara Bonansea barely missed a pair good chances, in these last minutes. Lucia Di Guglielmo is covering the whole Left-Side of our team, both keeping Graham Hansen on check and supporting the offense. Manuela Giugliano keeps creating football with her highlightening volley-passes cutting whole chuncks of the pitch.
Sudden reaction by Norway at 35' with an out of the blue shot by Caroline Graham Hansen and an impressive save by Laura Giuliani, who magically deflects the ball on the crossbar! Phew! That's why Italy would need to score a second goal: Norway, despite having being perfectly kept at bay so far, could equalize at any time.
Italy 1-0 Norway at HT. All Italian players were good to excellent in this 1st Half. Only problem is the 1-0 advantage is not particularly re-assuring and given our possession and dominance we could have done a little better with finishing. The best ones in the 1st half were Manuela Giugliano on top of everyone else, Barbara Bonansea and Giulia Dragoni just behind her, Valentina Giacinti and Lucia Di Guglielmo (she assisted the goal) very good in offense, Laura Giuliani always ready to face the few flash-actions by Norwegian FWs. But, really, it's difficult to find anyone who didn't play a good game in our team. Let's hope they can keep control of the game in the 2nd Half.
No changes at HT for either team. Valentina Giacinti already has a chance in the 1st minute of the Second Half, but it's wide by not much.
At 54' Agnese Bonfantini and Giulia Dragoni out, Sofia Cantore and Giada Greggi in. I am going to watch the rest of the game while dining in front of the TV, so I won't probably interact much here.
I watched the last hour or so and only a moment of slack defending from a second half corner-kick which enabled Norway to score from a far post header denied Italy what would have been a deserved three points after an excellent performance. A pity. Finland 1-1 Netherlands the other result in the group on MD4.
Italy 1-1 Norway FT, It's a shame, we took the usual goal from Corner-Kick action (it looks like we just can't defend those ), but apart from that we hadn't run many risks in this 2nd Half, where Norway was looking quite out of ideas and only seemed to count on Caroline Graham Hansen's personal actions. We had even hit the crossbar around the hour-mark with Sofia Cantore, but we couldn't manage to score the 2nd goal and we fatally tired out as the game progressed, since we obviously couldn't keep the pace of the 1st Half. I repeat: it's a shame, because the draw between Netherlands and Finland that was happening at the same time had opened a chance for Italy to reach the 1st place of the group. Nothing else much to say about this 2nd Half, except that I am not sold on Martina Piemonte: she replaced a gassed Valentina Giacinti (who had given her everything) in the final part of the game, but I don't think she added much more than her mere physical presence: she looks tehnically too rough around the edges for my taste and I am not surprised that she doesn't seem to score much in FA WSL (by the way, does anyone follow her there? ). Chiara Beccari, who also was a late-sub, looks much more promising, but she couldn't do much either, in the 20 minutes or such that she was on the pitch.
Yea, need some fire powe Agree about Piemonte, she's not a very skilled player, but I can see the use of a player like her for Italy, that can be physical and retain balls in the penalty area, a target player. It's a type of player Italy doesn't have a lot of, I would say Girelli is a bit like that and my woman Michela Cambiaghi. Piemonte I feel should get back to Italy, she's a name in Italy and I think they would be more patient with her there than in England and give her time to find her mojo , but what do I know? About the game I think first half from Italy was the best they showed in a very long time. Giugliano was the best one as you mentioned and Dragoni was maybe the 2nd best, very exciting anyway, think Guilani almost was the biggest surprise though, she looked very calm and was the 3rd best italian player. One last reflection is that I think Greggi looks very good in attack, but very lightweight in defence, she gets to easily pushed around.
Yes, I've got the feeling that if Michela Cambiaghi had been available she would have got the nod over Martina Piemonte, but it looks like calling her to the training camp was just a gamble, because she wasn't even on the bench today either.
Some sparse news about Serie A Femminile (nothing extensive: not a full market-review, for instance ). Transfer to Inter hasn't been officially disclosed yet, but Giampiero Piovani indeed left Sassuolo after 6 brilliant seasons there. Sassuolo's new coach is Gian Loris Rossi, who's been the 2nd coach at Sassuolo in some of the previous seasons. In other (market) news, veteran Belgian MF Tessa Wullaert has been signed by Inter. I'd say Serie A Femminile is distinctly becoming the place where some top-players are coming to end their career. Too many cases already, to be a coincidence: it's obvious that the league is still seen as some kind of a "tier-two" league (maybe legitimately, but still... ). At 31, Wullaert isn't really "old", but she's anyway sure past her prime and the days are gone when she was a relevant player for the likes of Wolfsburg or Manchester City. We're going to see if she's anyway good enough for Italy (Vero Boquete, for instance, still is at 37) Talking about Vero Boquete being good enough for Serie A Femminile: individual awards for the 2023-2024 season have been decided (even if they weren't yet given to their recipients) . MVP of the season : Manuela Giugliano (Roma). Well deserved, hats off. Single categories awards: Best Goalkeeper: Solène Durand (Sassuolo) (has @Lohmann anything to object? ) Best Defender: Elena Linari (Roma)(just one DF scored more than her in the European top-leagues) Best Midfielder: Verónica Boquete (Fiorentina)(of course, Giugliano is a MF too, but Vero anyway scooped this particular award; as we were mentioning, it says a lot about Serie A Femminile that its best MF is a 37 yo Spanish veteran ) Best Forward: Evelyne Viens (not a brainer, since she also was the top-scorer of the league with 13 goals ) Best Young Player: Jennifer Onyi Echegini (Juventus)(there were others good young players that could have deserved this award, but the way this Nigerian FW from the US college scene upsetted the Italian league was sensational; since she's 23 yo, I wondered what the age-requirement was to be considered a "young player" : according to the FIGC website, it looks like the limit was being born after the 1st of January of 2001: Echegini, being born on 22nd of March of 2001 barely qualifies for less than three months, but she anyway does ).
FIGC's website mentions the choices being made based on the stats from "Stats Perform", but I am not sure if the exact proceedings are published anywhere.
I am probably not going to have an extensive market-rewiew of the summer season, but from time to time I am going to drop here some market-news as they take shape. Valentina Giacinti has just renewed her contract until 2027. It's a very long contract for a player that just turned 30 this year: this means that she finally found her dimension in a club that she sees as the best one to live up to her ambitions and that the club itself recognize her as one of the top players of their program (Manuela Giugliano, an equally key-piece of the team, had signed a renowal until 2028 in this same season, in December of 2023 ). In other news, Claudia Ciccotti will leave Roma after 6 seasons: unlike the other players I mentioned, she can sound like an unknown name to many, but she was one of the few remained players (alongside Elisa Bartoli and Giada Greggi) from the inaugural 2018 season, when AS Roma Femminile was founded and bought the rights to play in Serie A Femminile from the previous historical club of the capitol, RES Roma (where many of these first players, including Ciccotti and Greggi, had already played for some seasons). Juventus respond by taking back Chiara Beccari from her loan at Sassuolo and by having her sign a contract until 2027 too. She's probably seen as the legitimate heir to Cristiana Girelli. Can she coexist with "Joe" Echegini in Juventus' FW-line? That's what we're probably going to see next season.
Updates for the stars of Italy! 🤝🇮🇹 Arianna Caruso on the 🔝.#seriea #manuelagiugliano #ariannacaruso pic.twitter.com/MRMGJ1f0dG— Soccerdonna (@soccerdonna) June 15, 2024
Somehow the market-value of the players seems to only partially reflect the recent awards of Serie A Femminile? Meanwhile, Kosovare Asllani, who was the #9 most valuable player of the league according to that chart, parts ways with Milan AC. She didn't exactly set the world on fire, in these last two seasons at the club, despite scoring a reasonable number of goals (16 in 38 games), but it has to be said that she was often injured (it had happened during her stint at Real Madrid also, if I remember well ). Her next destination is still undisclosed. In other news, Sara Stokić, a 19 yo Serbian FW who has played for Milan AC's youth team since January, has been aggregated to the Senior Team for a friendly tour in Mexico. It's not the only case of youth players who joined Senior Teams: Juventus recently gave professional contracts to a bunch of 18-19 yo youngsters from their Primavera (it's the name of youth teams in Italy): Ginevra Moretti, Giulia Bison, Giorgia Berveglieri and Maddalena Nava, although it's unclear how many of them will actually find playing time or will be given on loan to other Serie A's or Serie B's teams.