Häcken 1-0 Inter, FT. It can't be said to be an unfar result, but the hosts' goal was quite random and Inter should have been given a PK. All in all, a draw would have been very possible. Now everything is at stake in the return match.
Meanwhile, Atletico Madrid-Juventus' starting line-ups : Atletico Madrid: Gallardo, Lloris, Lauren, Menayo, Medina, Garcia, Ana Vitoria, Fiamma, Luany, Sarriegi, Jensen. On the bench: Larque, Bucero, Perez, Boe Risa, Guijarro, Otermin, Bartel, Portales, Penalvo, Gomez, Rodriguez. Coach: Victor Martin Juventus Women: Peyraud-Magnin, Kullberg, Harviken, Salvai, Carbonell, Schatzer, Stolen Godo, Tatiana Pinto, Bonansea, Cambiaghi, Beccari. On the bench: De Jong, Capelletti, Rosucci, Girelli, Walti, Vangsgaard, Thomas, Cascarino, Calligaris, Krumbiegel, Brighton, Lenzini. Coach: Massimiliano Canzi
Atletico Madrid 1-1 Juventus at HT. Atletico scored first at 39', but Emma Stølen Godø equalized through a Free-Kick at 45'+4'! Phew! Anyway you look at it, difficult times. We're going to see how it will end in the 2nd Half.
Atletico Madrid 1-2 Juventus, FT, after 10' minutes of additional time and a total of 3 Yellow-Cards for Juventus' players, including Barbara Bonansea (I hope she hadn't been cautioned already in the previous games!). Pheeeeeew. This European cups' mid-week round went well for at least one Italian team!
How did Roma look? I thought they looked very weak judging by the highlights. Almost looked more like Vålerenga deserved 2-0, more than Roma 1-1. Bad at home! Kinda get the feeling that Roma are a bit soft in CL. Not as cynical , physical and experienced as Juve. Weird choices from the coach also, with Corelli on the bench, again! and Greggi as well. Maybe there's an injury situation with Corelli, can't explain it otherwise. Juve on the other hand looked really stable today and also was close to taking a point against Bayern before, and it was a much better showing than the season before. I have to look into the confusing new system, but it feels like Juve got a good chance in qualifying? Yea Inter is worst in that in not fielding italians. Como usually is pretty bad as well,but now they have Pavan and Nichler shining at least! Inter's arch rival is doing better in this regard!
Judging by the highlights, it looks indeed like a solid performance by Juventus. Atletico's goal could have been invalidated by a foul at the beginning of the action, but arguably the referee applied the same measure of judgement in the action of Barbara Bonansea's goal in the 2nd Half. All in all, you would say that the margin for Juventus was there to see.and that they went slightly closer to score their 3rd than the host team to equalize. Also, it looks like one of the new signings from this season, Estela Carbonell, does work on the Left-Side. Yes, having 6 points in 3 matches sure helps : i'll have to look for the rankings too, but I am afraid to see how hopeless Roma is right now!
Juve have still a match at St.Pölten so they should reach the play-offs (but also matches against Lyonnes and Manchester United so direct qualification for quarterfinal is unrealistic).
Yea and that Vålerenga game really stings, allthough Roma were remarkably bad, as been said before. Their games against the topsides haven't been great showing either, unlike Juves honourable defeat against Bayern. Btw, the Häcken players where surprised by the low quality of Inter's attack, a few of their players mentioned it. Personaly I think it's a bit stupid to speak in those terms, as Häcken, allthough dominating, just scored one goal on a blunder and next game is in Milan. Gotto say though, I was surprised how much more explosive the Häcken forwards was then Inter defenders. Not surprised that they were faster and that they dominated possesion, but that much faster and explosive was surprising
On the other hand, Inter had out injured what's been their best striker in this beginning of the league, Haley Bugeja, and Elisa Polli. Also Nikée van Dijk, who had been signed to replace Annamaria Serturini who's out with an ACL, was back from an injury too and subsequently only played the last part of Wednesday's match.
Polli, Bugeja and Glionna gives me little confidence, too uneven. But Serturini is a major loss, she was consistently productive. To be fair maybe Bugeja is back to her former glory this season, maybe
Three Serie A Femminile's matches today. The first, in a quite foggy afternoon, was what I guess can be already considered a relegation-battle between Sassuolo and Ternana. There wasn't actually much action by either side (as you can see by the meager highlights, filled with no-consequence plays ), but Valeria Pirone chose the timing well for a counterattack action in the first minutes of the game, that (with Sassuolo's defense collaboration ) led to an assit for Under-20 talent Giada Pelgrino Cimò (one of the most promising youngsters of her generation) who scored the goal that ended deciding the game. Sassuolo didn't create much to equalize and anyway had to face a more than decent performance by the visitors' GK Gloria Ciccioli. Thus, at the 6th matchday, Ternana finally win their first game ever in Serie A Femminile (and make their first points in this season). Parma-Fiorentina was mostly played under the rain. Fiorentina, despite currently being the second force of the league behind Roma, had a hard time breaking Parma's defense and only managed to score in the 2nd Half with a PK by Emma Severini; the host team, though, equalized almost immediatley with Gaia Di Stefano. In the final minutes, captain Caterina Ambrosi had to make a spectacular save on the goal-line, but it was the only other real danger Parma had to face and the game ended on a 1-1 draw. Interesting (?) tidbit: the referee of the match was Andrea Terribile: you can rightfully say he was literally... terrible! Finally, the late afternoon's match was between two of the three teams who were third-placed at 9 points, Como and Milan. The game was all about penalties: Milan were given one at the end of the 1st Half, but Evelyn Ijeh missed it by sending it high; then, in the 2nd Half, Como were given a PK of their own and missed it too (with Nadine Nischler, who sent her shot crashing on the crossbar). Finally, at 89', Milicia Keijzer got a deserved Red Card for denying young Veronica Bernardi a clear goal opportunity: a long VAR-review was needed to decide if the foul had been made outside the box of inside it; in the end, the third PK of the day was given and this time Nadine Nischler converted it in style. 11 minutes of additional time later, Como secured the three points. Today's recap: Sassuolo 0-1 Ternana Parma 1-1 Fiorentina Como 1-0 Milan Today's highlights:
Another Milan player was next to Bernardi so I think it's not DOGSO. All 3 Milan defeats this season happened in added time.
Surprisingly bad effort by Milan after that Juve game, eh? Maybe they have a hard time playing games where they are supposed to control the game. From the time I watched Como looked so much better, looked more cohesive, more pleasing for the eye. Como got a nice team!
The number of chances Inter wasted all along the match they played in Napoli looked unreal: saves, woodwork, DFs kicking the ball away from the goal-line... and then, at 81', with a ruthless counterattack, Napoli scored with Cecilie Fløe (who nutmegged Cecilía Rúnarsdóttir in the process). It's the darkest hour for Inter: nothing goes their way, these days and, with the league going so awry, they have to win Europa Cup's return-match vs Häcken at all costs, or their season will look like a failure in November already. Roma quite clearly dominated the derby vs Lazio, but, for all of their chances (some of them were well saved by Francesca Durante), they actually managed to score just one goal, with Lucia Di Guglielmo in the 1st Half. Anyway, at least for them, the domestic league is being a consolation compared with the sad Champions' League's run. Finally, Juventus sealed the deal early in the 1st Half vs Genoa, with two goals by Amalie Vangsgaard and by Cristiana Girelli. In the 2nd Half the Danish striker uselessly tried to show she's finally become clinical, but repeatedly missed the brace; meanwhile, at HT; Juventus had subbed-in 19 yo promising Spanish talent Cristina Librán. Today's matches: Napoli 1-0 Inter Roma 1-0 Lazio Juventus 2-0 Genoa Today's highlights: The rankings (Como at 2nd place is quite sensational and justifies @dravde' appraisal ): 1.Roma 15 15-7 2.Como 12 9-6 3.Fiorentina 11 13-9 4.Juventus 10 6-4 5.Napoli 10 8-8 6.Milan 9 12-11 7.Lazio 9 7-8 8.Inter 6 9-8 9.Genoa 6 7-9 10.Parma 6 4-8 11.Sassuolo 5 4-6 12.Ternana 3 8-18
In other news, during the week-end Sofia Cantore has reached NWSL's title-match with her team, Washington Spirit . She was a starter in the semifinal:
Europa Cup's last call for Inter in about 15 minutes : These are the starting line-ups: INTER (4-3-3): 1 Rúnarsdottir; 13 Merlo, 5 Andrés, 24 Milinković, 3 Bowen; 10 Magull, 6 Santi, 27 Csiszár; 18 Glionna, 31 Wullaert, 8 Vilhjálmsdóttir. On the bench: 12 Piazza, 32 Belli, 4 Pleidrup, 11 Van Dijk, 16 Tomašević, 33 Bartoli, 44 Consolini. Coach: Gianpiero Piovani BK HÄCKEN FF (4-2-3-1): 13 Falk; 25 Bergström, 12 Sandbech, 3 Luik, 20 Wijk; 5 Wickenheiser, 7 Sanvig; 24 Tindell, 10 Anvegård, 11 Jusu Bah; 9 Schröder. 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 still with a lot of relevant injuries. Giampiero Piovani said that the perfect match will be needed. Häcken only won the first leg by 1-0, so the task is apparently not impossible. We're going to see. A little later, at 18:45, Juventus-Olympique Lyonnais will be played: I am going to mostly follow Inter's match, not only because it's the only one that's visible for me, but also because it looks like the most interesting one (Juve don't need to win at all costs against OL to advance, although any point would of course be welcome), but I'm going to drop news about the score from time to time. These are the starting line-ups of this second match: Juventus Women: Peyraud-Magnin; Kullberg, Harviken, Salvai, Carbonell; Brighton, Stolen Godo, Tatiana Pinto; Beccari, Cambiaghi, Vangsgaard. On the bench: De Jong, Capelletti, Rosucci, Girelli, Thomas, Cascarino, Calligaris, Krumbiegel, Moretti, Copelli, Volpini, Lenzini. Coach: Massimiliano Canzi OL Lyonnes: Endler; Renard, Bacha, Dumornay, Heaps, Diani, Hegerberg, Engen, Yohannes, Chawinga, Tarciane. On the bench: Belhadj, Micah, Junttila, Becho, Shrader, Katoto, Lawrence. Egurrola, Sombath, Svava, Benyahia, Brand. Coach: Jonatan Giraldez. Barbara Bonansea is not even on the bench: has she maybe been suspended for her YC in the previous game? U-17 internationals Anna Copelli and Viola Volpini on the bench.