A comfortable 2-0 at HT. I hope we won't be able to waste such an advantage in the 2nd Half. Apart from the goals, Italy's dominance looks quite reassuring: we conceded a pair of chances to Finland from defensive lapses, but actually the 1st Half was almost all Italy. And Chiara Beccari scored Italy's first goal and her first at all for the National Team. The second one was by Manuela Giugliano, who had also assisted the first goal. Both goals came from atrocious defending by Finland, but Italy exploited their shortcomings well. Well, Koivisto wasn't indeed up to the hype, since she was subbed-off at 25', I guess mostly for failing to contain the Italian player who, in my opinion, was the MVP of the whole match so far: top-level work-horse Giada Greggi. If I have to choose the worse player for Italy, it has to be a DF, instead: captain Elena Linari made some obvious blunders, but actually the one I am less confident about is Lucia Di Guglielmo: she's not a bad player per se, but in my opinion she's technically an half-step behind the rest of the team.
@blissett what is it with italian female football legends and low voices(Morace, Guarino,Bavagnoli), smoking? Anyway good half again, they are back on the scoring spree they had in the autumn last year
Agree mostly about Linari think she's a bit rough around the edges sometimes, but a fighter nevertheless. As for Di Guglielmo maybe they could move down Bonansea to her position? She works hard and her defence seems ok, a bit wild move though
Very calm in their passing also which I like, could spell problems against bulldozing teams like England and USA, but nice to see.
Well, let's try being more accurate: it's not actually that Lucia Di Guglielmo hasn't technique, because she showcased it instead in this 2nd Half by passing her direct opponent at first with a nutmeg and later with a roulette: so, she has the technique indeed, but she often doesn't make a good use of it. In this same game, twice (one per half!) she failed to trap the ball from a simple defensive pass by her team-mate, resulting in a free throw-in in the offensive third for the opponents. So, how can I call that? Lack of concentration? Because I can swear that it's not the first time I see her do such things in a match. Also, these blunders particularly catch the eye because most of her team-mates (Manuela Giugliano, Giulia Dragoni, Sofia Cantore...) are technically flawless. Valentina Giacinti once again illustrated a page from the handbook of a different technique: diving. Sofia Cantore's one, instead, wasn't a dive: it was, once again, a denied PK for Italy. But we were already on a 3-0 score by then, luckily it didn't matter. So the game ends on a 4-0 score (many subs in the 2nd Half, who did well: Michela Cambiaghi scored a wonderful goal and Valentina Bergamaschi made sure that what was going to be deemed an own-goal from a CK action anyway passed the goal-line) and Italy even win this very balanced group, since Netherlands-Norway ends on a 1-1 draw (spelling Norway's elimination: it's a shame that one of this two teams had to be out of Euro 2025 ). A shout to @Lohmann: Laura Giuliani had the best save of the game, on a 4-0 score, when she had to make a reflex-deflection from... a Valentina Bergamaschi's attempt at an own-goal!!! I guess they're going to show it in highlights, because it was really a wonderful save.
Highlights already uploaded; Laura Giuliani's save was actually on a 3-0 score, but it doesn't make much difference.
When Andrea Soncin was appointed coach of Women's National Team, I admit I was as perplexed as many other people by that choice. Now, in just 10 months, he took Italy to a 2nd place in their Nations' League group, just behind the World Champions, and eventual winners of the Nations' League itself, of Spain (that Italy have anyway beaten) and to a 1st Place in the Euro-2025 Qualifier Group. And it's not like any of these groups looked "easy", at least on paper (Spain, Sweden and Switzerland in the Nations' League; Netherlands, Norway and Finland in the Euro-Qualifier). It's impossibile to deny that Soncin did an excellent job so far!
On december 5 , after Italy got the 2nd place in its group at NL, staying in A league, i remember i asked you what about Soncin ... You answered me on dec 6, ended by this : "Of course, though, he will have to give some continuity to these first results" Done
It seems that Bayern expect that Runarsdottir will be No1 goalkeeper at Inter. "With the loan to Inter, Cecilia will have the opportunity to gain a lot of match practice after her long injury break. This is important for her further development."
Mmm, this sounds indeed very strange, because Francesca Durante is in the National Team's pool and it looks like she has recovered from the injuries that kept her out of the pitch for long last season; I'd expect her to be the first-choice GK at this point... Unless she's going to be signed by another club. The only sure thing is that Sara Cetinja has been signed by Lazio, so Cecilía Rúnarsdóttir should be at the very least Inter's 2nd GK. She's very young and I don't think she has ever been a starter fo Bayern: why do they think that Inter should consider her their #1?
As I was mentioning, I guess it's time from a market-recap post, since my last one about the subject dates back to the 3rd of July and many things happen in the two weeks since then. Many of the news I'll mention have been already covered on other threads from these boards (in particular The Transfer Thread, that's regularly updated by many contributors ), some of the others come from Italian media that I personally scouted. There have been so many moves in these last 15 days, that I'll have a sort of team-by-team recap: just remember that I won't repeat pieces of info that I have already covered in my previous posts (i.e., this post is not covering all of the market-news, only the ones that surfaced since my last update). Juventus have most probably been the most active club so far in this summer, both with players leaving and coming. Part of the crowded "French colony" in the team ended up leaving: Ella Palis to Montpellier, Maëlle Garbino to Paris FC; other French players remained, as Lindsay Thomas who recently re-signed. Canadian Julia Grosso also leaves, to play in the NWSL (at the Chicago Red Stars), and that sounds like a huge loss. Paulina Nyström is also rumoured to be going to get back to her own country, at BK Häcken. The club's strategy seems to be to re-create a strong Italian core to the team, as mentioned in my previous posts, both by redeeming players who were on loan (Chiara Beccari, Eva Schatzer) or by signing big domestic names (Valentina Bergamaschi). There are anyway meaningful international signings too: Danish FW Amalie Vangsgaard from PSG, for instance; or young Swedish Midfielder Hanna Bennison from Everton, who could be a similar move to Julia Grosso's one from a pair seasons ago (securing a young promising Midfielder that has not yet shown all of her potential but could be very good). I am a little torn about Swiss Alisha Lehmann, from Aston Villa: how much of a product of hype & social is she and how much is she the real deal? Call me biased, if you want, but the fact that her partner Douglas Luiz is being signed by Juventus' men's team at the same time sounds a little suspect to me: you can't help doubting that this could have been part of a whole package. We're going to see. Meanwhile, talking about Swiss players, Juventus permanently signed DF Viola Calligaris, previously just on loan from PSG. Not many news about Roma, lately, instead, since they already have a quite strong team, not actually needing much tinkering. I am sure I had already talked about Giulia Dragoni joining the team on loan from Barcelona, but I don't remember if I had confirmed that it was official and not just a rumour. Anyway: it's official, and Dragoni has now been presented by the team. Roma also signed GK Olivie Lukášová from Slavia Praha: not sure if she will actually compete with Camelia Ceasar for a starting place, but it's anyway an interesting signing. Finally, Frederikke Thøgersen joins Roma from Inter. There were indeed some interesting Goalkeepers' signings in Serie A Femminile. We had already mentioned how Sara Cetinja had left Inter to join Lazio and it's recent news, as @Lohmann has just posted, that Inter signed Icelandic GK Cecilía Rúnarsdóttir from Bayern München. But it doesn't end here, because Fiorentina just signed Norwegian Cecilie Fiskerstrand: this must be a sign that the club is intentioned to part ways with at least one of their top-level Italian GKs, Rachele Baldi or Katja Schroffenegger (most probably this last one, who's already 33). Talking about Fiorentina, one would expect a much more crackling market-campaign, given the difficult task waiting for them in the Champions League , but so far their market-campaign is mostly about extending the contracts of some of their key-players, and letting go of some of their admittedly too many FWs (Pauline Hammarlund, for instance, will be back to Sweden, at Djurgårdens, while Milica Mijatović is rumoured to be going to leave too). Who's being as active as ever, despite the change of coach, is Sassuolo: they thrive on young domestic talents or underrated internationals, so you can be quite sure that some of the names that I am going to mention won't seem to say much to many, but they'll anyway become significant factors of the league along the season. On the domestic market Sassuolo secured Sara Caiazzo and especially very promising Valentina Gallazzi from Pomigiliano. Cecilia Prugna, a key-piece, extended her contract. Gina Chmielinski is German, but she also comes from last season's Serie A, where she quite impressed with Napoli. Finally, on the international market, Sassuolo signed young (18 yo) Danish Midfielder Maja Hagemann and Belgian Forward Elena Dhont (now, that's a name I remember from the Italy-Belgium clashes from the latest years! ). Talking about Pomigliano, it's obvious that their better talents have to find a new destination, because it's been anounced that, after the relegation from the last season, the team won't sing up to next season's Serie B and will be back at Eccellenza instead (lowest level of women's football). Sad ending to their recent story. Other important news from these last weeks are about coaches: everyone knew Giampiero Piovani, who had recently left Sassuolo, was going to be Inter's next coach: now the news are official. The other club from Milano, instead, Milan AC, took a new intriguing and ambitious-looking road, since they managed to sign Suzanne Bakker, the coach who did so well at Ajax last season. Will it be enough to finally grab that elusive Champions' League's spot? Finally, some sparse news about other teams: talking about coaches, Napoli signed Salvatore Mango, who two seasons ago had been signed by Sampdoria mid-season and had managed to save the team from the relegation with an impressive final part of the season. Miharu Kobayashi, the Japanese Left-Back who started almost all of the games for Napoli last-season (won't be easy for them to replace her!), will be back to Japan, at Nippon TV Tokyo Verdy Beleza. No particular news about Como, instead, except that Katja Schroffenegger, who, as we mentioned above, is probably going to leave Fiorentina, is rumoured to be going to be signed by the team of the lake; Midfielder Lucia Pastrenge, instead, is leaving to a still undisclosed destination.
Almost a month has passed since my last market-update of Serie A Femminile and a lot of transfers (big ones and less-big ones) have happened, enough to justify a new post and a team-by-team review; I'm thus going to list Seria A's teams in alphabetical order, with the most significant movements that happened for each in this last month (a warning: as usual, it won't be a full recap, just an update, so, if you missed the previous transfers... go back and read the relevant pages of this thread! ): COMO: the first important signing for the team of the lake was the new coach, Stefano Sottili, a former professional player with more than 500 caps between Serie A, Serie B and Serie C, who also had a significant career as a coach in men's Serie C, although he's at his first experience in women's football. In the last seasons Como had shown a quite clear preference for developing young players; their first new signings for next season are three seasoned, but most probably still very good, veterans instead: GK Katja Schroffenegger (33 yo), who was indeed rumoured to get there from Fiorentina in my previous update, and Full-Backs Giorgia Spinelli (29 yo), from Fiorentina again, and Alia Guagni (36 yo) from Milan. 22 yo MF Lucia Pastrenge, who was already rumoured to leave, went indeed to Fiorentina: obviously the Tuscan team found a good market-partnership with Como. Margherita Monnecchi, indeed a loan from Fiorentina in the last season, has now left too to go to Spain. FIORENTINA: we already said about Lucia Pastrenge from Como. The biggest name of these last days is anyway most probably Agnese Bonfantini: Juventus keep detaining her rights, but they once again give her on loan (after her stints at Sampdoria and Inter in the previous seasons). Another important Italian signing is CB Maria Luisa Filangeri, an international with 17 caps for Italy NT, who joins the Tuscan team after 5 seasons in Sassuolo. Fiorentina also signed Giorgia Bettineschi from Brescia (Serie B) and Danish MFs Emma Strom Snerle and Sofie Bruun Bredgaard (the club remains quite Scandinavia-oriented: some Swedish players left, some Danish ones came ; Bredgaard, anyway, comes from the Swedish league, where she played for Rosengård and she was named best player of the league in 2022). DF Martina Toniolo, who was on loan to Fiorentina from Juventus, has been redeemed by the club and is now permanently a Fiorentina's player. Since Fiorentina had a quite positive market-campaign and Ajax basically depleted their team, with their best youngsters (and the coach!) being signed around in Europe, maybe the Viola have an half-chance to advance in the UEFA Women's Champions' League. For what concerns departures, as we're going to see further down the road, Zsanett Kaján and Martina Zanoli left to Lazio. Margherita Monnecchi, who had been on loan to Como in the last season, permanently left to Spain (Eibar). INTER: it looks like the top-signing of these last days is Elisa Bartoli: the 33 yo DF, who was Roma's captain for years and recently won two consecutive titles with them, brings an invaluable amount of experience to Giampiero Piovani's team. Talking about this last one, it was clear that the new coach was going to bring some of the players he most liked in his Sassuolo: thus 23 yo Martina Tomaselli was signed by Milan's club. 20 yo Bosnian FW Maja Jelčić has been given on loan in Greece, to Panathinaikos, instead. Andrine Tomter also left, back to Norway, at Rosenborg. JUVENTUS: let's start with some departures: Paulina Nyström, who was rumoured to be going to be back to Sweden, to BK Häcken, indeed left.Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, who didn't exactly set the world on fire in her two seasons at Juventus despite high expectations, was apparently lured by the Arabian sirens, since she signed for Saudi team Al Qadsiah FC. Bénédicte Simon, who had anyway been given on loan in the last season, permanently left too. We already said about some other loans (Agnese Bonfantini to Fiorentina) or loans turned into permanent moves (Martina Toniolo, also to Fiorentina). A boatload of young players was given on loan to Sampdoria: I am going to list them there. Another relevant number went to Napoli: same option to list them there from me. Most of Juventus' important signings had been already fialized when I wrote my previous report: there was one last exciting move in store for Juventus though 18 yo starlet Manuela Sciabica has been officially signed; for the joy of those who like to see top-youngsters get experience at mid-tier teams, she will be anyway given on loan to another Serie A's club, Napoli. Juventus also signed 32 yo Swedish DF Emma Kullberg from FA WSL's Brighton & Hove Albion: given the competition for a DF's spot at Juventus, I am not sure if she can be seen as a potential starter, despite her experience : maybe, some of the Swedish friends of this thread can tell us more? LAZIO: the newly-promoted team had some quite interesting signings. 22 yo Martina Zanoli, whose promising career had been hampered by a major injury at Fiorentina, decided for a new start at the club from Roma, after a short loan to Como at the end of the last season. Anyway, the most high-profile signing surely has to be French offensive MF Clarisse Le Bihan from Angel City FC. Other signings include already mentioned Hungarian FW Zsanett Kaján from Fiorentina (also through Como), MF Flaminia Simonetti from Inter, Full-Back Elisabetta Oliviero from Sampdoria, French DF Inès Belloumou from West Ham, 20 yo DF Federica d'Auria, on loan from Juventus, who already had given her on loan to Cesena in Serie B in the last season. On paper, coach Gianluca Grassadonia has a quite solid team to work with,sure not looking like relegation fodder: we're nyway going to see if it will be enough: on paper, Parma had a lot of good names two seasons ago, but they ended up being relegated right away anyway. MILAN: no significant move that I know of in the last 3-4 weeks (apart from Alia Guagni leaving to Como). Are they still serious about trying to catch a Champions' League's spot? NAPOLI: we already mentioned 18 yo Manuela Sciabica been given on loan by Juventus, but she will be joined by 4 other Juventus' players who will play for Napoli on loan (Melissa Bellucci, Alice Giai, Bosnian DF Gloria Slišković and Ginevra Moretti); an additional player will move from Juventus to Napoli on a permanent basis, not just on loan, and we're taliking about Michela Giordano, who did very well on loan to Sampdoria in the last season. Since we're talking players from 18 to 23 yo, it looks like Napoli, in the next season, will look like an interesting developmental club for young talents. But it doesn't end here: the club with Salvatore Mango at the helm also signed Ugandan FW Violah Nambi, from dismantled Pomigliano, and Swedish DF Matilde Lundorf from Juventus (via Como). Pomigliano, who recently withdrew from Serie B , was indeed an important resource for Napoli: players who didn't want to move from Napoli's area, easily signed for Napoli when it was clear Pomigliano wasn't going to remain alive as an high-level club: Pomigliano's signings from previous weeks that I hadn't anyway heard of, and thus I couldn't mention in my previous updates, include Virginia di Giammarino and Debora Novellino. From Como, instead, came FW Melania Martinovic and German Vivien Beil. ROMA: most of Roma's key-moves had been already made in the previous weeks; lately, they signed young Italian-American Victoria Della Peruta from Sampdoria until 2028 eek:), although they anyway decided to leave her on loan to Sampdoria. Also, French DF Hawa Cissoko was signed from West Ham. Alva Selerud got back to Sweden instead (she didn't get much playing time in Roma). SAMPDORIA: this is another club who received some relevant loans from Juventus: 24 yo DF Federica Cafferata, who even earned 3 caps for the National Team in the recent past, is probably the most established name; then we have 23 yo GK Roberta Aprile, 20 yo FW Nicole Arcangeli (who last year uselessly tried to help Pomigliano avoid relegation) and less-known Sofia Bertucci, Giulia Bison and reserve-GK Sabrina Nespolo. Although the most important move probably was selling Victoria Della Peruta to Roma, but anyway managing to retain her on loan (last year she scored 8 goals in 11 games!) SASSUOLO: despite their historical coach Giampiero Piovani leaving to Inter, the club maintained their plan to start anew every season by developing young players and underrated internationals. After Chiara Beccari, Manuela Sciabica too left to Juventus (she will be on loan to Napoli, as we mentioned above), but there are a lot of new signings, including some who could soon become (or not ) well-known names to Serie A Femminile's followers: DF Martina Fusini from Pomigliano, DF Aurora De Rita from Sampdoria, 32 yo veteran Greta Adami from Lazio (previously at Milan and at Fiorentina, where she won an Italian title), 18 yo French MF Kadidia Traoré and 24 yo Salvadorian MF Samantha Fisher, from NWSL's Chicago Red Stars.
Meanwhile, the friendly matches of the Women's Cup 2024 happened in the USA and Juventus won the Louisville's tournament by beating Colo Colo (Chile) by 4-1 and Palmeiras (Brazil) by 1-0. It sure was a good chance for new coach Massimiliano Canzi to early integrate the most recent signings into the team. Juventus 4 - 1 Colo-Colo Cantore 10', Girelli 63', Vangsgaard 82', Caruso 90'+4' --- Balmaceda 59' Juventus 1 - 0 Palmeiras Beccari 40'
I guess the latest market-news will be mixed with the reviews from the first matches. For instance, Philipino top-scorer Sarina Bolden has been just revealed to be going to transfer in Italy but to a still unnamed club.
It's Napoli if this source is correct. 🚨🇵🇭 @PilipinasWNFT TRANSFER:STAR forward Sarina Bolden makes the move to NAPOLI Femminile (Italian Serie A Femminile) from Newcastle Jets! 🇮🇹🇦🇺Europe isn’t ready. 🌟 #PWNFT pic.twitter.com/38lsQC14Tx— amiel 🇵🇭 (@amtcfc) August 26, 2024
Oh, well, on second thought, it would be too much confusing to mix the market news with the recap of the first matches, also considering that, in the last weeks, there were very active clubs while others didn't post any significant news. So, while the first matches of the first match-day are underway, and while waiting for final scores and videos, let's deal with those last market movements. COMO was one of the most busy clubs, lately: their top signings in this second half of August were most probably Slovenian 18 yo starlet Zara Kramžar, on loan for one season from Roma, and Spanish FW Elisa del Estal from Napoli. Other signings include young 21 yo GK Astrid Gilardi (who will anyway most probably remain behind the other recent signing Katja Schroffenegger), MF Nadine Nischler from Meran (don't let the name mislead you: she's Italian), Danish DF Agnete Marcussen, Norwegian MF Mina Bergersen (extending the loan from Roma) and Spanish (Catalan) DF Berta Bou Salas. Another GK, Francesca De Bona, who played last season in Serie B with RES Roma is probably destined to be the 3rd GK in the pecking order. INTER have another option for the forward-line, since they just signed Swedish Loreta Kullashi from Sassuolo (via Rosengård, who actually had her rights); she scored 7 goals with Sassuolo in 2023-2024, including an hat-trick vs Sampdoria. They also signed young (19 yo) Finnish DF Jasmin Mansaray. JUVENTUS signed 25 yo Canadian GK Lysianne Proulx, most probably to be reserve to French international Pauline Peyraud-Magnin. (In other non-market news, Barbara Bonansea just suffered a muscle-injury, that most probably will keep her out for at least some weeks ). We had previously mentioned Maja Jelčić being given on loan from Inter to Panathinaikos; actually, the initial deal was broken and the Bosnian FW was given to NAPOLI instead. We're going to see if the club will manage to actually sign Sarina Bolden also, as rumoured by the tweet who @Lohmann just quoted above. After a long negotiation, Martina Piemonte decided to leave Everton and to get back to Italy, at LAZIO. Maybe she feels like this move will give her more chances in an Italy NT perspective? It anyway looks like a very good addition to their offensive-line for the Roman club. And that's all, folks, for Serie A Femminile's transfers from this second half of August. Of course there can be other moves after the start of the league, but that's where we're at right now. And now, back to the pitch: the recap from the first matches is upcoming on this very thread.