Walti would be a good acquisition for Juventus, especially for their Champions League matches. Too bad for Arsenal if she leaves.
4-1 is the Final Score: Inter qualify for the first round of Europa Cup (the draw will happen tomorrow in Nyon ).
As it's been already written here, Inter quite easily dispatched Valur, despite missing a PK with Lina Magull on a 0-0 score. Three goals in the middle of the 1st Half by Haley Bugeja, Lina Magull and Elisa Polli were enough to file away the game; the goals by Valur's Fanndís Friðriksdóttir and by Inter's Marie Dutruyer in the 2nd Half didn't change the outcome. Let's hope Inter can now have a good campaign in Europa Cup, since they missed the major competition. (By the way, congratulations to @Bauser and to his Brann, who advanced by beating Braga by 1-0! ) Sparta Praha were a respectable Champions' League's first stages contender in the past, but they more and more look like just a sparring partner as time progresses. I have to wonder where Czech women's football is actually positioned in Europe, by now. Roma quite easily disposed of them, also considering that captain Manuela Giugliano was particularly inspired, with a brace, an assist and starting the action of the first goal by retrieving a loose ball just outside Sparta's box and giving to Alice Corelli who slung a perfect cross for upcoming Emilie Haavi. The other Roma's goals were an header by Lucia Di Guglielmo and a smashed-in rebound by Marta Pandini. Aneta Dědinová's tap-in at 87' was nothing more than some little consolation for the hosts. The news signings looked quite effective, in particular Katrine Veje and Valentina Bergamaschi, who covered their whole respective wings alternating defensive and offensive duties. Fun fact: vs the Czech team, coach Luca Rossettini went for the Czech GK, since he gave a rest to Rachele Baldi and started Olivie Lukášová instead, maybe counting on the local rivalry (since she was a former Slavia Praha's player). Olivie Lukášová had been signed last season, but, despite having worn #1 since then, she hadn't found much playing time, having been basically a third GK to Camelia Ceasar and to Isabella Kresche: now, I guess she can be considered the legitimate reserve GK to Rachele Baldi. Highlights of these game aren't available yet, but you can see the goals through the full match video that was posted by @Lohmann here above. recap of the scores: Knattspyrnufélagið Valur 1-4 Inter Roma 5-1 Sparta Praha Highlights of Inter's game:
Possible opponents for Roma: Manchester United Atletico Madrid Eintracht Frankfurt Sporting CP Austria Wien
Well, Roma was often lucky with the draw (although not always: see the pairing with Barcelona in quarter-finals in 2023): no doubt that there is quite some difference between the possible opponents here.
Went to Chelsea v AC Milan, it ended up 4-1. There was a gulf of class between the teams which you expect. We spoke to the head coach and she was very clear on how Milan AC wants to compete and develop but the players need to learn as they lack experience.
Some sparse market news that surfaced in the last days: The most high-profile name is Lia Wälti, whose transfer from Arsenal to Juventus has been confirmed today. Some other news from Milan: Nadia Nadim left to her country, Denmark, at Køge; meanwhile, Milan signed 21 yo Norwegian FW Thea Kyvaag, from LSK Kvinner: can @Bauser tell us anything about her? By the way, slightly related with the market news it's that Nadine Sorelli, one of the most promising of Milan's Italian youngsters, needed surgery for a broken fibula after the first game of the season and will be out for some months: it's likely that Milan will have to move on the market to replace her. Since we're talking about injuries, Annamaria Serturini is out with an ACL. Hard blow both for Inter and for Italy NT. Best wishes to her for an as fast as possible recovery. Another Norwegian Forward (despite the Icelandic-sounding name) has been signed by Fiorentina: it's 22 yo Iris Omarsdottir (once again paging @Bauser for info). Sassuolo, who lost one of their best scorers of the last season, Gina Chmielinski, who left to Lipsia, has signed a young Cameroonian FW from Paris Saint-Germain, Naomi Eto, who apprently has done particularly good in the past at U-20 level with her country. The rest of the news mostly consist of re-signings, since there were players who hadn't finalized theirs yet: for instance, you probably remember my comment to Benedetta Orsi's signing by Fiorentina: Well, Maria Luisa Filangeri has now officially renewed her contract with Fiorentina, who has also confirmed Michela Catena and Emma Severini, all three players with a contract until 2028. Roma, instead, finalized ther GKs' line-up by extending the contracts of Olivie Lukášová (who recently was a starter vs Sparta Praha) until 2029 and of young 3rd GK Valentina Soggiu (22 yo) to 2027. Finally, an unusual piece of news: Vivien Beil, who had to leave football after a serious injury, anyway remains at Napoli as a staff member, with the role of mental coach and technical expert.
Kyvåg usually plays as a left winger rather than a centre forward. She had a short and unsuccessful spell at West Ham a couple of years ago, but was very young then. She has probably matured since, but has featured for a fading LSK Kvinner team in Toppserien with limited success in recent years. Her greatest asset is her pace. Full-backs in Serie A should be aware of that. I also think she lacks a bit of end product to her game. Iris Omarsdottir is a big and strong all-round centre-forward and has been Stabæk's best player over the last few seasons. She was Toppserien's second best goalscorer in 2024 with 14 goals and has "only" 6 so far this season. Not yet called up for Norway, but she is one of those names just outside a NT squad. I'm more optimistic about Omarsdottir's chances in Italy than Kyvåg's, to be honest.
Another sign of how Milan's disappointing market is worse than Fiorentina's and probably of most of Serie A Femminile's clubs!
Is in Italy the captain the player who is the longest time at the club? (I wondered why reserve goalkeeper Selena Babb is the vice-captain)
Normally, yeah, but actually the coach can make different choices. Selena Babb's status is indeed puzzling: being 30 yo and at Milan since 2021, she's indeed one of the most old and expert players in this very young Milan team, but giving the vice-captaincy to a clear reserve-Golkeeper sounds anyway quite odd.
Two games of the Women's Cup were played yesterday, Roma-Milan at 15:00 for Group C and Inter-Fiorentina at 20:00 for Group B. In the former of them, Roma had a quite clear dominance, especially in the 2nd Half, but they were actually only dangerous from set pieces, and even then the shots they were slinging towards Laura Giuliani didn't seem overly dangerous, until a powerful one by Giulia Galli (17 years, 5 months and 15 days old!) ended up making the only difference in this game. I guess we're going to hear from this young girl in the next years. Thea Kyvåg had a god chance at 5' for Milan, but she wasn't seen much afterwards; as usual, Evelyn Ijeh was much more dangerous, in particular with an attempted lob in the final minutes of the game, but Milan woke up too late to actually have the chance at equalizing the score. Inter-Fiorentina took a clear direction right away, since at 4' the home team was ahead already by 2-0, with goals by Elisa Polli and Karólína Vilhjálmsdóttir! Then Fiorentina somehow managed to slowly get back into the game, until they managed to score a goal in the second half with Sofie Bredgaard, but Haley Bugeja answered with what looked like a carbon copy of the Danish goal: a neat dribbling in the box and the ball placed close to the left post. The Maltese FW looks like one of the best players in her team right now, but Inter will anyway have to do without her in the next game, since she was sent off in the final minutes of yesterday's match: I've only seen the highlights, that didn't show the foul leading to the Red Card (I am not even sure if it wasn't actually a double YC, as the comment-guy seems to claim), so I can't assess how much justified it was. Fiorentina, despite their very active market campaign and their new coach, look quite soft and not at the same level of Inter. Yesterday's matches: Roma 1-0 Milan Inter 3-1 Fiorentina Highlights:
When the referee shows the red card with his left hand you can see that he has the yellow card in his right hand so I think it was a double yellow card. We don't see what happened but Inter player No 16 kicked the ball after the whistle in direction of Fiorentina goal so maybe Bugeja kicked it back in the other direction.
Recap of yesterday's 4 matches of Women's Cup. Napoli-Parma ended in an hard-fought 2-2 draw, that saw two US players score, one per team, something not so usual in Serie A Femminile. Cameron Brooks actually had lost a crucial ball just outside her box that had led to the goal of Parma's advantage, by Gaia Distefano, but she made up by scoring the equalizer just before HT with an header from Corner-Kick action (she's 1,75 tall and showcased an impressive physical presence). The 2nd Half was more of the same, with Napoli scoring first, this time, with HT-sub Hanna Barker (the other American player I was mentioning), but Parma managed to equalize at 90'+1' with always dependable Zsanett Kaján, who did quite good in all of the teams she changed in the 4 season she passed in Italy (with Fiorentina, Como, Lazio and now Parma). Big upset in Biella , where Lazio manage to beat Juventus at her home, with a pinball-like multiple-deflected shot by Noemi Visentin at 90'+3', thus taking the lead of Group A. That goal was quite lucky, but actually Lazio had already hit the crossbar in the 1st Half with an header by Clarisse Le Bihan from a cross by always feisty Elisabetta Oliviero. The champions' of Italy looked soft and sure have to find a less wastful striker than Amalie Vangsgaard, who decindingly doesn't seem to have the killer-instinct in front of the goal. At Sassuolo's home, the winners of last season's Serie B of Ternana had to wear a faint white kit instead of their typical green-red stripes: their game-style didn't anyway suffer of that and they dominated the match for long, until finally they managed to score in the 2nd Half with an header by Paloma Lázaro, a relavant summer signing that I had someway missed in my recaps of Serie A's market. Ternana's was anyway dangerous with her strong U-19 NT's players also, Giada Pellegrino Cimò and Eleonora Ferraresi. In the end, Sassuolo managed to quite randomly equalize with hour-mark-sub Manuela Perselli from a Ternana defensive mistake with 7 minutes to go, but the impression is that the visitors could have deserved something more. Como-Genoa concluded the match-day in the evening. In the 1st Half the game looked like one-way traffic, but anyway the home team had only a late-goal by Danish Mathilde Kruse Madsen to show. in the 2nd Half the game looked more open, with Genoa sometimes dangerously showing in Como's Half and with the hosts unable to close the game (Alisha Lehmann was subbed-in at 65' and had three chances but didn't manage to score ), until finally the visitors equalized at 86' with Caterina Bargi, 61 goals in 89 matches with Genoa in three seasons of Serie B, including the top-scorer's title of the second division in 2023-2024: no-one else could have given this point to her team (that anyway most probably eliminated both competitors of today from the Women's Cup, since reaching the best 2nd-placed team position looks quite hard and would require some quite unlikely combinations of results). Yesterday's matches: Napoli 2-2 Parma Juventus 0-1 Lazio Sassuolo 1-1 Ternana Como 1-1 Genoa Highlights: The next match-day will decide the access to the semi-finals, since only the three group winners and the best 2nd-place team will advance, so I guess it's a good thing to mention the standings of the three groups and the schedule of next week: Group A Lazio 6 points (goal difference: 3-1) Juventus 3 points (goal difference: 2-1) Napoli 1 point (goal difference: 3-4) Parma 1 point (goal difference: 2-4) Group B Inter 6 points (goal difference: 5-2) Fiorentina 3 points (goal difference: 3-3) Genoa 1 point (goal difference: 2-3) Como 1 point (goal difference: 1-3) Group C Roma 6 points (goal difference: 5-2) Sassuolo 4 points (goal difference: 3-1) Ternana 1 point (goal difference: 3-5) Milan 0 points (goal difference: 0-3) Next week's game (last match-day of group stage): on Friday the 13th, Juventus-Napoli Lazio-Parma on Saturday the 14th, Inter-Como Fiorentina-Genoa Roma-Sassuolo Milan-Ternana
Should have been all games on last matchday at the same time but Italian Federation doesn't seem to think this cup is important themselves.