I was right that we needed a diiferent captain, a more self-assured one: Rachele Giudici missed two penalties, one during the game and the only one that was missed in this whole penalty shootout. It's not because I am a sore loser, but I wouldn't want Mexico to win this tournament: their style of football is physical and quite boring. If they'd win the whole thing I'd feel like, I don't know, like if Canada would win the Olympics in Japan... whoops!
Meanwhile, Sassuolo-Fiorentina has been played; posts, crossbars, incredible saves by Solène Durand: in the end, despite dominating the game, Fiorentina only scored a single goal, an header by Madelen Janogy in the additional minutes of the 1st Half! The last score of today: Sassuolo 0-1 Fiorentina The last highlights from today: And the updated rankings of Serie A Femminile (please, notice Inter at 8th place! ): 1.Roma 12 12-2 2.Fiorentina 7 7-6 3.Juventus 7 3-2 4.Napoli 7 7-7 5.Milan 6 10-9 6.Como 6 4-4 7.Lazio 6 6-7 8.Inter 5 7-5 9.Parma 5 3-6 10.Sassuolo 4 2-3 11.Genoa 3 6-7 12.Ternana 0 5-14
Not sure: as you know it's always difficult to find reliable news about women's matches: as far as I know, it was a normal technical change, maybe to give a little rest to Alice Corell after the intense NT camp.
Nation's League's draw for the World Cup qualifier just happened. Italy got Sweden, Denmark and Serbia. Meh: although Denmark as seen at the last Euro is nothing to be too much worried about, we could have been a little luckier with pot 3. Also: we always get a lot of Scandinavian opponents! General view:
In Sweden many are speaking about a dream draw, but I think that's wrong. Denmark has the best squad from pot3, allthough they flopped in the euros, they certainly got the best history of the teams. And for Italy, it's ofc better than to get England or Netherlands, or is it really better than NL? But it's probably worse than getting Norway and Serbia is along with Ireland probably the best team in their pot. For Italy I think any of the teams in pot A would be hard to beat, but the real bad luck was getting Denmark. I feel people wright them down to quickly just because of the euros, they bounce back with a 6-0, or 6-1, victory against Finland recently and many of their players plays in good clubs. From experience a change in coach can mean a lot and I suspect that can be true for Denmark as well.
Yesterday an inusual Friday's evening match of Serie A Femminile has been played ad it was a relevant one, because, unexpectedly (at least to me), Roma suffered the first loss of the season in the league: considering how badly the season had started for Fiorentina, I didn't imagine that they would have been the first to beat Roma. There anyway have been two important factors that determined that result: the first and arguably most important one is that Roma had to play with 10 players since 22', when Winonah Heatley was sent off with a double Yellow Card (I didn't see the first offense, but the second one was surely cardable and a player sitting on an early Yellow Card should have been more careful: that's even the very reason why the cautions are given). At that moment, Roma was behind already from a goal at 5' by Iris Omarsdottir. But, as I was saying, there also was a second factor that led to Roma's loss and it was the poor performance by Czech GK Olivie Lukášová, who was back in goal after Rachele Baldi had replaced her in the latest weeks: Sofie Bredgaard's hat-trick (technically, her third was actually a Valentina Bergamaschi's own-goal) is mainly on her and on the awkward way she spilled the Danish Midfielder's shots. in-between, Roma managed to score with an own-goal by young Under-19 Emma Lombardi and a PK by captain Manuela Giugliano, but finally it was Fiorentina ending the game on a high note with the late goal by Norwegian DF Emilie Woldvik at the last minute of additional time. So, Roma is suddenly stopped and Fiorentina bounce back: the league sure becomes more interesting this way. Yesterday's match Fiorentina 5-2 Roma Highlights:
Two matches today in the afternoon. The first one saw Milan take on Juventus on their current home venue in Fiorenzuola (that, by the way, has some kind of a beam obstructing part of the view in the video-highlights ). Juventus were denied two potential PKs, but anyway they didn't create enough chances to get back in the game when Milan went ahead, twice: the first one with Evelyn Ijeh in the 1st Half, that was later equalized by a neat Cristiana Girelli's touch in the additional time of the same half; the second one, after a goal-mouth scramble, by Chanté Dompig, and this one went unanswered. So, Juventus remain at 7 points and Milan pass them at 9: the rankings are taking shape in a strange way, with most of the teams who are playing in Europe who are showing some trouble on the domestic stage and aren't apparently guaranteed to qualify for the next Champions' League. It's going to be an interesting season, it seems. This trend is confirmed by the second match of the day, since Inter, despite going ahead very early by 2-0 with a brace by Tessa Wullaert (a PK and a tight angled shot within the first 11' minutes of the game), allowed Sassuolo to come back with two goals by Lana Clelland in the 1st Half and by young French MF Lina Grève Chaïb (just 18 yo), who went even close to scoring the winner for her team in the additional time. So Inter remain at just 6 points after 5 match-days (1 win, 1 loss and 3 draws ), just one point ahead of their opponents of today. Today's matches: Milan 2-1 Juventus Inter 2-2 Sassuolo Today's highlights:
Yesterday, the U-17 WWC in Marocco had its final match and Giulia Galli retained her third place in the scorers' ranking (along with Noa Fukushima, but I guess she beats her with assists). A good consolation prize for a bright young talent.
The last-match of this match-day, Genoa-Parma, will be played later than usual, starting at 20:30 in the evening, so I'll probably only post my final update tomorrow in the morning. Meanwhile two matches were anyway played in the afternoon: the first one was Ternana-Como. It's a shame that Ternana are still at 0 points, since their roster, after all, is not much different from the one that allowed them to win last season's Serie B by a large margin, but frankly their defense is all over the place and it doesn't look up to the task of stopping Serie A's offensive lines. Their first choice GK, Katia Ghioc, was finally back today after the injury that had stopped her in the last month, but she didn't look better than the reserve-GKs (Viola Bartalini and Gloria Ciccioli) who had replaced her in the latest weeks. The 1st Half was a blunder-festival that allowed Nadine Nischler a quite easy brace and Matilde Pavan even an "olimpico" that was directly scored from Corner-Kick. The 2nd Half was a little better, and Ternana even managed to scored twice with a couple of PKs that were converted by their top-scorer Valeria Pirone, but in-between them Como scored another with Alexandra Kerr, for a final 2-4 score. With this win, Como catch up with Milan at 9 points. Lazio only won their match vs Napoli at 90'+4', but, hey, a win is a win! Eleonora Goldoni and Martina Piemonte almost hit that ball together, but in the end the goal was given to the latter. With this win, Lazio are sitting at third place, along with Milan and Como. Decidingly, not the rankings most would have predicted at this point of the season. Today's afternoon's matches: Ternana 2-4 Como Lazio 1-0 Napoli Highlights:
The final game of this match-day seemed poised to be a 0-0, with a slight prevalence by Parma in an anyway not very thrilling evening, when, at 88', the hosts of Genoa scored, thus going at 6 points and passing their opponents of today in the rankings. The scorer was usual suspect Caterina Bargi, who was deemed to have controlled that ball with her shoulder, and not her arm; anyway, her shot was clinical and beat Camelia Ceasar by passing thorugh her stretched hands and the post. The last match from yesterday: Genoa 1-0 Parma And its highlights: These are consequently the new rankings of Serie A Femminile (where Roma momentarily stopped their run): 1.Roma 12 14-7 2.Fiorentina 10 12-8 3.Milan 9 12-10 4.Como 9 8-6 5.Lazio 9 7-7 6.Juventus 7 4-4 6.Napoli 7 7-8 8.Inter 6 9-7 9.Genoa 6 7-7 10.Sassuolo 5 4-5 11.Parma 5 3-7 12.Ternana 0 7-18
Sorry to be late in giving the starting line-ups of Roma-Vålerenga (the match has almost ended), but I am less motivated when I can't actually watch the games live. These were the starting line-up: Roma (4-3-3): Baldi; Bergamaschi, Oladipo, Heatley, Veje; Giugliano, Rieke, Kuhl; Pilgrim, Viens, Haavi On the bench: Lukasova, Soggiu, Di Guglielmo, Valdezate, Dragoni, Corelli, Greggi, Pante, Pandini, Thogersen, Galli, Cherubini Coach: Rossettini Vålerenga (3-4-3): Enblom; Eiriksdottir, Kovacs, Horte; Hansen, Brekken, Vickius, Tennebo; Hegg, Saevik, Tvedten On the bench: Grinde-Hansen, Erichsen, Lindwall, Inauen, Thorsnes, Sesay, Aronsson, Heidarsdottir, Enger, Bergman-Lundin Coach: Olsen Vålerenga scored at 40', we're currently at 73' on the same 0-1 score. Roma's Champions' League's run could be very short, this season... For records: Giulia Galli had been subbed-in at HT.
...And the game ends: Roma 0-1 Vålerenga, FT. Bad home loss, I can't really see Roma come back from that.
With Leuven and St.Pölten they have still two opponents they could beat. Will 6 points will be enough?
Europa Cup's Häcken-Inter should be aired by Inter-TV as usual, starting at 18:30. We anyway already have the starting line-ups: BK HÄCKEN FF (4-3-3): 13 Falk; 25 Bergström, 3 Luik, 12 Sandbech, 20 Wijk; 7 Sanvig, 10 Anvegård, 5 Wickenheiser; 24 Tindell, 9 Schröder, 11 Jusu Bah. On the bench: 1 Birkisdóttir, 29 Karlsson, 4 Östlund, 6 Byrnak, 14 Nildén, 15 Selerud, 17 Chinzimu, 18 Löwing, 19 Akgün, 22 Nyström, 26 Staaf, 30 Sampaio Coach: Mak Lind INTER (4-3-2-1): 1 Rúnarsdottir; 13 Merlo, 3 Bowen, 5 Andrés, 14 Robustellini; 21 Tomaselli, 27 Csiszar, 20 Detruyer; 8 Vilhjalmsdottir, 31 Wullaert; 10 Magull. On the bench: 12 Piazza, 32 Belli, 4 Pleidrup, 6 Santi, 11 Van Dijk, 16 Tomašević, 18 Glionna, 24 Milinković, 28 Verrini, 29 Giudici, 30 Romanelli, 44 Consolini. Coach: Gianpiero Piovani As usual, just a few Italians in the starting line-up. I am not sure why Elisa Polli is not even on the bench. It's interesting that three players from the U-17 NT that reached the Round of 16 at the recent WWC in Morocco are on the bench: Sofia Verrini, Martina Romanelli and Rachele Giudici (who missed two PKs in Italy's last match vs Mexico: I wonder if she'll be given a chance to bounce back tonight ). Atletico Madrid-Juventus will be played under a pay-wall instead, as all of the UEFA WCL's matches this year. It will start at 21:00 and the line-ups aren't yet available.
It's a shame: Inter have been not bad at all in the rest of the 1st Half, but they conceded in a really awkward way! Häcken 1-0 Inter at HT. Let's hope Inter can do something in the 2nd Half, despite missing a lot of injured offensive players (including Haley Bugeja and Elisa Polli).
Inter denied a clear PK at 80'. Giampiero Piovani even gets a Yellow Card for protesting. I have to suppose there is no VAR in Europa Cup, because this would have been given with the first even most careless review.