The torch will be on 3rd February in Como so it's no real explanation why Lehmann wasn't in the squad against Parma.
The final match of this match-day was Sassuolo-Lazio: Martina Piemonte had quite a lot of chances and converted two of them in the 1st Half. Maya Doms scored one for the hosts in the 2nd Half, but it wasn't enough and Roma's club ran away with the three points (as Inter, they're trying to bounce back after a not-so-good beginning of the league ). The match: Sassuolo 1-2 Lazio The video: These are the new rankings: 1.Roma 19 17-8 2.Como 15 10-7 3.Juventus 14 8-5 4.Fiorentina 14 14-10 5.Milan 13 16-13 6.Napoli 13 11-11 7.Inter 12 16-8 8.Lazio 12 9-11 9.Parma 7 4-9 10.Sassuolo 6 7-10 11.Genoa 6 8-17 12.Ternana 4 8-19 Of the pair of teams who have the same points, Juventus have beaten Fiorentina on the previous match-day, so they are ahead in the rankings despite the worse goal difference. Lazio and Inter had also clashed on the last match-day of November, while Milan played Napoli this Saturday, and both scores were wins for the team who anyway have the best goal-difference. Finally, Sassuolo and Genoa haven't met yet, so Sassuolo is currently just ahead by goal difference.
UEFA WCL's St. Pölten-Juventus going to start in about 10 minutes. These are the starting line-ups: SKN St. Polten: Schluter; Nagy, Krizaj, Ebert, Klein, Gutmann; Matavkova, Laino, Peneau, Mattner; Brunold. On the bench: Osigus, Vracevic, Aistleitner, Elmore, Rukavina, Woelki, Ollivier. Coach: Laurent Fassotte. Juventus Women: Peyraud-Magnin; Krumbiegel, Calligaris, Harviken, Carbonell; Pinto, Walti, Schatzer; Beccari, Girelli, Vangsgaard. On the bench: De Jong, Capelletti, Kullberg, Bonansea, Godo, Thomas, Cascarino, Salvai, Brighton, Cambiaghi, Lenzini. Coach: Massimiliano Canzi It's a chance for Juventus to take advantage of their easiest match on paper: let's not waste it. I wonder what's the weather in St.Pölten these days.
Just before HT a PK by Cristiana Girelli made the score 0-2 for Juventus. Now we're 10 minutes in the 2nd Half.
When it rains, it pours: three other goals, by Cristiana Girelli from PK again at 59', by Tatiana Pinto at 66' and by Paulina Krumbiegel at 81'. This should shore up Juventus' goal difference for good.
St. Pölten 0-5 Juventus, FT. Having allowed OL to come back from 0-3 to 3-3 stings even more after this win.
and they did let in a dodgy goal in the 90th minute against Bayern. A very good campaign for Juve in Champions one has to say. Drawing with Lyon and almost getting away with something from Munich and playing well mature football in general. The strive for more athletic players have paid off, they don't look like Girls against Women in Chamions against the top. On the other hand the loss of Cantore, Caruso and Boattin has hurted their creativity in the league.
Here are the highlights of the game: Not only Cristiana Girelli scored two PKs: with her clever dummies she has set up the last two goals! It's a shame that she couldn't convert her last chance at 90' from a nice assist by Paulina Krumbiegel: an hat-trick would have been what she deserved. On the other hand, despite the fact that she opened the score, I keep having the feeling that Amalie Vangsgaard could do better with her converting ratio.
Vangsgaard got a powerful shot, doesn't she? There's lots of potential in her, but it feels like she often takes the wrong decision. Maybe cause she's self-conscious and overthinks and overdoes. Juve nees to get her right, she's an unpolished diamond I think. To be fair not every player can change their mentality, but hope she can become more of a killer.
Chelsea-Roma's line-ups (for what it's worth ); starts in about an hour: Chelsea: Peng Bronze, Bright (c), Buurman, Charles Walsh, Kaptein Kaneryd, Macario, Baltimore Kerr AS Roma:Lukasova | Thogersen, Heatley, Oladipo, Bergamaschi, Giugliano, Pandini, Kuhl, Dragoni, Babajide, Pilgrim
To minimize the pain, I decided to choose the shorter highlights from the Chelsea's website: here's the link to them. Even from them, you can see how much one-sided the clash was. Chelsea could have easily had doubled the number of goals they have scored if it wasn't from some impressive saves by Olivie Lukášová, who was back in goal for Roma. Also, no real threat to their goal: Valentina Bergamaschi's header would have been a nice effort if it hadn't aimed to her own goal to open the score. To raise our spirits, let's give a look to the general table (pretending not to see Roma in the last-to-one position, just ahead of St. Pölten: the next week, their "derby" will decide the last position): Juventus are currently 4th-placed and it's almost in their hands to directly qualify to the quarter-finals, something few (even on this very thread ) would have found possible at the beginning of this campaign. I say it's "almost" in their hands because the goal difference is the first tie-breaker and, despite Juventus being currently ahead, there are two teams at the same points: Bayern are probably less of a concern, because they have a massive goal difference to overcome to catch up with Juventus (they're now 8 goals behind) and they are going to play Vålerenga, who will fight to avoid the last elimination-place that's still in contention so they could likely lose but they shouldn't be an actual push-over. Much more worrying is Real Madrid, who will face already eliminated Twente and could have a large win: their goal difference is currently the same as Juventus, they just have scored one goal less than the Italian team. So, Juventus could end up 5th even with a win vs Manchester United, unless it's an actual rout for them. On the other hand, the chances of beating them are not so slim: they have just lost by 0-3 to OL and if you consider that Juventus almost managed to win vs the latter, it's not impossible to think that Juve could make it. It's very difficult, though, to imagine that they can beat them with a better score that Real Madrid's vs Twente. Finally, there is always the chance that one of the three teams ahead of Juventus stumble: Barça or OL losing their respective matches would be most probably inconsequential, because Juve wouldn't likely catch up with their goal-difference anyway. We'd need Wolfsburg to prevent Chelsea from winning instead, because in that case Juventus would be in with any win: @Lohmann, can we hope for any help?
In the press conference the Roma manager explained that he had to rotate his squad as his players are not used to play every three days and played his best team in the League once they knew they would not qualify for the UWCL play-offs. Also there is a gulf of quality between his team and Chelsea.
I can understand the reasons behind the choice but it's anyway no good for the current leaders of Serie A Femminile to suffer such a loss on the international stage.
The game was probably just seen as a waist of energy for Roma. They have only one focus- The Scudetto and I suspect WCL was an afterthought from the beginning. Bit sad, but I can't really blame them. They got a more inexperienced team than Juve and probably been worse of trying to achive something in both. They for tried in the beginning of Champions, but main focus was always on the leauge
A whopping 4 matches were played today. Juventus can be well positioned in Europe, but they sure don't have it easy on the domestic scene: after going behind in the 1st Half vs Napoli because of a goal by Polish MF Kinga Kozak (but the impression is that Napoli's real driving force is Danish striker Cecilie Fløe), the host team, despite equalizing at the first action of the 2nd Half with Chiara Beccari, had to wait until 85' to score the winner with Michela Cambiaghi (who didn't have many goals so far in this season, but sure made those few count ). A personal observation: it seems to me that the referees in Serie A Femminile tend to hardly change their decision after a VAR-call by one of the team. In this match, both teams were denied a PK and at least the one on Cristiana Girelli frankly looked to me like it could have been given. Como-Fiorentina had the 2nd place in the rankings at stake: the hosts went ahead first with Australian FW Alexandra Chidiac, but Fiorentina equalized almost right away with Katla Tryggvadóttir; it the 2nd half, then, Michela Catena completed the comeback with a personal brace (with her second goal basically set-up by a crazy dribbling in her own box by Como's DF Agnete Marcussen ). Fiorentina hadn't started their season very well, but they they now have beaten the team that so far had been the revelation of the league: can they really challenge Roma and Juventus for the title? @Lohmann's comment basically gave away the entity of Milan's defeat in the derby vs Inter: they had even gone ahead first with Kayleigh van Dooren, but Inter equalized right away with Ivana Andrés and went ahead at the beginning of the 2nd Half with Henrietta Csiszár; then Haley Bugeja, who was back in the 2nd Half from the injury that had stopped her for some weeks, embarassed Milan's defense and scored a personal hat-trick (the spin on the curved shot of her third goal was pure class ). Two observations: 1) it's a shame that Inter was missing Haley Bugeja in a key-moment of the season, when they had to face BK Häcken in Europa League, because I've got the feeling that the result could have been different with her on the pitch; 2) almost 5 years ago, on march 2021 Milan had won the derby vs Inter by 4-1, with four goals by Valentina Giacinti: now the roles seem to have been reversed and Inter definitely took their revenge for that historical loss (although Haley Bugeja scored one goal less than Valentina Giacinti did at the time). Finally, two goals in the 1st Half (one within the very first minute by Giulia Dragoni, followed later by an own-goal by Heden Corrado) were enough for Roma to beat Ternana in a classic top-vs-bottom clash and to keep their advantage over the chasing rivals. Talking about Roma, some reliable rumours seem to suggest that Lucia Di Guglielmo would be close to signing for San Diego Wave in NWSL, so the team would be going to lose another important piece. I wonder if Italy NT's recent mini-tour in the USA did create or accelerate that opportunity for Roma's Full-Back. Recap: Juventus 2-1 Napoli Como 1-3 Fiorentina Milan 1-5 Inter Ternana 0-2 Roma Highlights:
Don't think so, I more fancy Inter to do so, but I must say Fiorentina has really built their team well. Built a stronger team, a deeper team, since Boquete left I think Roma is the slight favourites over Juve for the title. They came well prepared in the beginning of the season, when Inter and Juve dropped point left and right. That might win it for Roma. They also got an easier schedule before the league turns, Juve have to face Inter 2 times, while Roma just 1. That means Juve can be 8 points behind Roma after next round and then it's gonna be hard for them to come back, given they also have to perform in CL, while Roma can focus on the league.If Juve loses, Roma can lose against both Inter and Juve and still win the title. With last season's format I woud fancy Juve, but this season marginals are so slim for coming back by own force.
The first of the remaining matches that were played today was Genoa-Sassuolo and it was basically decided by the connection between Elena Dhont as the assist-woman and Lana Clelland as the finalizer: this duo produced a goal in the 1st Half (a wonderful back-heel trick by the Scottish veteran) and a post in the 2nd Half. Genoa pushed and ended up hitting a post of their own with usual suspect Caterina Bargi, but in the end they didn't manage to equalize. Lazio-Parma was conditioned by the early Red Card to Flaminia Simonetti, that left the host one player down for most of the game. Parma didn't manage to properly exploit that advantage though (they scored a goal with Danielle Cox in the 2nd Half, but it was disallowed for a foul) and in the end Lazio's NT members Elisabetta Oliviero and Martina Piemonte created the match-winner action (a run & cross on the Left-Side by the former, that was finalized with a powerful header just under the crossbar by the latter). A reflection after these two matches: with today, the three newly promoted teams, Parma, Genoa and Ternana, are at the three last positions of the rankings. One can't actually say that they've not been competitive at all, because to be fair they have made quite some points, but it's a fact that, apart from Sassuolo who are now just ahead of them, the other teams have carved a big gap separating them from those last positions, to the point that you've got the impression that only the current last 4 teams will actually battle to avoid the relegation. So, was it a mistake to expand Serie A Femminile to 12 teams? I don't think so, my impression is that this choice will end up paying, especially for what concerns the development of young Italian players, but it's a fact that the teams from Serie B look like they weren't completely ready for the top-division yet and Serie B needs to grow a lot if their promoted teams want to hold some hope to advance to Serie A to stay. The two matches of today... Genoa 0-1 Sassuolo Lazio 1-0 Parma ...and their highlights: The updated rankings: 1.Roma 22 19-8 2.Juventus 17 10-6 3.Fiorentina 17 17-11 4.Inter 15 21-9 5.Lazio 15 10-11 6.Como 15 11-10 7.Milan 13 17-18 8.Napoli 13 12-13 9.Sassuolo 9 8-10 10.Parma 7 4-10 11.Genoa 6 8-18 12.Ternana 4 8-21 Como are behind Lazio because they have lost the direct clash and they are behind Inter just because of the goal difference, since they haven't met in the league yet.
I think we should give them some time, not everybody can be like Como and Lazio. In fact Napoli sucked for a long time, but have now there house in order. Parma should've the resources to compete. Or at least they given the impression they want to suceed long term. So I hope they don't fall out the league already. I hundred percent think it's the right thing to do, the expansion. With the growing numbers of foreigners in Serie A fem it was needed with more space for domestic players. Remember also Napoli, Pomigliano and Sampdoria weren't that great either in the 10 teams competition, I think the average level have improved. I hope Parma gets a better striker in the winter market though, they need it but yea, there is a limited number of good enough teams in Serie A fem, but I think it's better to have one team too many, than one tea too few.
I absolutely agree and I hope I made it clear. I am just a little bit disappointed that it looks like these teams are playing some sort of "relegation pool" of their own.