Today had five matches in a single day (only Fiorentina-Napoli is scheduled for tomorrow)! I'll do my best, but maybe I'll have to shorten the reports a little. Milan won their match vs Genoa with a brace by Kayleigh van Dooren, but it wasn't an easy task, since the winner-goal only came at 87'. Good assists by Park Soo-Jeong and Chanté Dompig, but the Korean player also committed the foul costing the PK that set the score on a 1-1 draw for most of the 2nd Half (Laura Giuliani had saved Norma Cinotti's first shot, but she could do nothing on the rebound). Milan had a good spell vs relegation-fodder teams, but now Roma awaits for them in the next match-day. Lazio-Como was a nice open match: just two goals (scored by Zara Kramžar for Como and by Nikola Karczewska, back from suspension, for Lazio), but plently of good actions and woodwork hitting. Two good teams, who keep looking for the top positions. Quite incredible match in Parma: the hosts went ahead early with Ecuadorian MF Kerlly Real, but it didn't take much to Roma to equalize with a PK by Manuela Giugliano (vs former team-mate Camelia Ceasar) that was given for a quite clear handball. Parma, though, went ahead again with Danielle Cox and even rounded up the score by going on 3-1 with Veronica Benedetti at the beginning of the 2nd Half. Then the key moment of the match was another handball in Parma's box by another former Roma's player, Hawa Cissoko, who was already on a Yellow Card and was subsequently sent-off. Manuela Giugliano scored the PK again (by aiming to the other side), but, despite being down a player, Parma gave the impression of being able to hold on, until, at 90'+9', Rinsola Babajide found the header that handed Roma the 3-3 draw! Phew! An early goal by Marie Detruyer (not the cleanest of actions, but they of course took it ) was enough for Inter to win their away match vs Ternana and to strenghten their 2nd place. Now the challenge to Roma is set, although they remain 5 points behind the leaders of the rankings. Juventus-Sassuolo was Chiara Beccari's match, since, vs the team where she had played on loan in her youth, she scored a brilliant hat-track. Cristiana Girelli had one goal of her own to set the undisputed 4-0 final score. Recap of the match-day: Milan 2-1 Genoa Lazio 1-1 Como Parma 3-3 Roma Ternana 0-1 Inter Juventus 4-0 Sassuolo Highlights: See you tomorrow for Fiorentina-Napoli, guys!
Napoli managed to beat Fiorentina at their home by 1-2 and to pass them in the rankings! Of course most of the credit goes, as usual, to Cecilie Fløe, who scored the first goal for her team and gave Marja Banusic an assist that only needed to gently push the ball in the net, allowing Napoli to get ahead by 0-2 quite early in the 1st Half. The home team tried to come back for the rest of the game, but they were unlucky with some woodwark, with the suboptimal aim or power of their shots and finally with some saves by Napoli's Danish GK Freja Thisgaard (another signing from the winter market that had basically flown under my radar since it had happened on the 13th of January, while I was putting together my market-review already; by the way, I wonder why Napoli needed a GK, since equally young Beatrice Beretta has been quite good so far ). Fiorentina only managed to score a goal at 80' with Iris Omarsdottir, but it was too little too late. The fight for the top positions of the league keeps being fascinating. The last match of the match-day: Fiorentina 1-2 Napoli Highlights of that match: The new rankings: 1.Roma 29 25-12 2.Inter 24 27-12 3.Juventus 23 18-8 4.Milan 20 22-19 5.Napoli 20 16-14 6.Lazio 19 14-13 7.Fiorentina 18 19-17 8.Como 17 14-14 9.Parma 9 7-16 10.Sassuolo 9 9-18 11.Genoa 7 10-22 12.Ternana 7 9-25 For what concerns the tie-breakrs that are different from last week's ones, Fiorentina have beaten Como on the 9th match-day and Parma have beaten Sassuolo on the 2nd match-day.
I quote @Lechus7 from The Transfer Thread for some market news (departs and arrivals) regarding Serie A Femminile: The biggest piece of news seems to be Zara Kramžar leaving to Everton: she was a Roma's player so far, but she had been given on loan to Como. It looks like Roma, in this season where they are well poised to win the league, don't feel like they need to retain this excellent young player (she just turned 20 in January), who anyway needs to play at an higher level. So Como lose their probably best player, and their chances to reach the top-positions of the league look slimmer and slimmer. Alisha Lehmann had been much less relevant on the pitch, but I wonder if anyway these two consecutive leaves (although the second one depends much more on Roma than on Como) don't mean that the power of attraction of the club is rapidly decreasing and if FC Come Women isn't losing ground in their town to upcoming winners of Serie B of Como 1907. Nikée van Dijk had been a patch solution to Inter while they had most of their strikers injured, but, now that Haley Bugeja and Elisa Polli are back, she was probably going to get much less playing time, so it makes sense that she wants to leave. About the new arrivals from other leagues, I don't know much about them, so I guess only time will tell if they're going to be a factor for the respective teams.
You can add Ewelina Kamczyk (FC Fleury) --------------- > (AC Milan) Poland WNT vice-captain (CM/AM) has joined Rossonere till 30 June 2028
I am not informed about men's football because I basically don't follow it (I can't help getting news about it from time to time, but I am not actively interested and I don't know how the Olympics could have impacted the league). For what concerns women's football, sincer neither women's team in town uses San Siro stadium, apparently it's just business as usual. Tomorrow, Inter will regularly play their home match vs Fiorentina at the Arena Civica stadium, downtown Milan, while Milan AC will be away in Roma. Next week it will be Milan AC playing home, but they don't even use to play their home games in the town area, so the Olympics will hamper them even less. Finally, about women's footballers being involved with the event, of course the focus is now on different kinds of athletes, but, as it's been mentioned on this very thread, Cristiana Girelli was one of the torch-bearers (along with women's NT's coach Andrea Soncin). It's possible that there are other forms of involvement, but I am not actually informed about them.
Three matches today. Genoa-Lazio was an entertaining, open match: the home team had gone ahead early, with captain Arianna Acuti assisted by Colombian Elexa Bahr, but Lazio was unfazed and scored three goals throught the rest of the 1st Half with Emma Martín, Clarisse Le Bihan and Martina Piemonte; in the addtional time of the 1st Half, though, Genoa found a counterattack-action leading to an assist by Arianna Acuti that was converted in goal by an Anastasia Ferrara's low-shot. Anyway, in the 2nd Half Lazio scored two other goals (with Eleonora Goldoni and Martina Piemonte again, whose brace with an header came from a cross by fellow NT member Elisabetta Oliviero) and there was no comeback for the home team. It has to be said that Genoa's keeper Camilla Forcinella was quite unlucky, since at least two of the goals were made unsavable by some lethal deflections by her Defenders. The final score was anyway fair and square. There was a crucial deflection in Juventus' first goal in Como also: it was scored by Estela Carbonell, but GK Astrid Gilardi was misled by her own DF. On the other side, Daniëlle de Jong (Juve's first choice of GK since Pauline Peyroud-Magnin's departure to the USA) had some excellent saves on various attempts by Nadine Nischler and Fortesa Berisha. In the end, after a denied PK to Como and a disallowed goal to Juventus, Paulina Krumbiegel managed to score 0-2 and to close the match. Sassuolo-Parma ended on a 1-0 score, but highlights will be probably up after midnight, so I am going to comment on this match tomorrow. Recap from this Saturday: Genoa 2-5 Lazio Como 0-2 Juventus Sassuolo 1-0 Parma Highlights:
Not sure why the highlights from Sassuolo-Parma didn't appear (so far) on YouTube official Serie A Femminile's channel. I anyway found them on Parma's channel , so you can see Davina Philtjens' goal (she's going to turn 37 at the end of February ) that decided the game at 82'.
After a string of good results (mostly against bottom-of-the-rankings teams, though) Milan finally have to surrender to Roma. It wasn't an easy win for the league-leaders, though, and basically it was only decided when Kayleigh van Dooren was sent-off at the hour mark for a foul (indeed potentially leg-breaking) on Rinsola Babajide. A few minute later, this last one, who had indeed been very good as a Left-Winger for the whole game, served an header-assist to Valentina Bargamaschi who scored what was going to remain the only goal of the game. Evelyne Viens tried hard, but she saw two goals being (correctly) disallowed for off-side and met a reactive Laura Giuliani in a pair other circumstances. What Milan are going to do with their offense.line, now that Evelyn Ijeh left to USA and Kayleigh van Dooren will be suspended for at least one match? It's news from yesterday that they have signed some Mawa Sesay from Vålerenga (maybe @Bauser can tell us something about her). Meanwhile Roma are keeping the chasing teams at bay. Nightmare afternoon for Ternana's DF Francesca Quazzico: in just 37' she managed to score an unfortunate own.goal against her own team (after the original shot from Alessia Carcassi had been deflected by GK Katja Schroffenegger) and to be sent off for a direct Red Card she deserved for a foul on Marija Banusic. From then on, it was all Napoli, who scored again with young Alessia Carcassi (almost 22 yo), once again from an assist by excellent Cecilie Fløe, and with another own-goal (with Katja Schroffenegger spilling in her own goal a quite harmless CK). The final goal for Ternana, scored by Giada Pellegrino Cimò, sets a final result that's a little misleading, since Napoli's dominance looked way wider than just a 3-1 score It's the third consecutive win for Napoli, who are now alone at 4th place and can fight for something that wasn't even remotely predictable at the beginning of the season. Finally, Inter have squarely beaten Fiorentina by 3-0, with goals by Lina Magull, Haley Bugeja and Elisa Polli, and it could have been even more if Tessa Wullaert hadn't opened and closed the match in an unlucky way, seeing a wonderful lob being disallowed for a slight off-side in the beginning and missing a PK in the final minutes. Inter anyway remain the first team of the pack of Roma's chasers. Scores: Roma 1-0 Milan Napoli 3-1 Ternana Inter 3-0 Fiorentina Highlights: This week's rankings: 1.Roma 32 26-12 2.Inter 27 30-12 3.Juventus 26 20-8 4.Napoli 23 19-15 5.Lazio 22 19-15 6.Milan 20 22-20 7.Fiorentina 18 19-20 8.Como 17 14-16 9.Sassuolo 12 10-18 10.Parma 9 7-17 11.Genoa 7 12-27 12.Ternana 7 10-28 Nothing new for what concerns the tie-breakers. In other news, Como have sacked their coach Stefano Sottili.
Napoli the big positivt surprise and Fiorentina the negative one so far. I guess Roma's dominance is a bit surprising, mostly due to Inter, especially and Juve's poor start. That Roma was on their toes in the beginning can lead them too gold. A completely different topic, but who is the foreigner in Serie A fem that's been playing the longest ? I guess it's Clelland, she was even playing and becoming top scorer before Juve was formed. Second one is perhaps Philljens who's been playing since 2019 at least. Then Thomas as well been in for a while.. Interestingly I think neither of the top clubs have one that's been in their team very long, bit surprising to me, well except for Thomas, but she's been wondering around a bit. Any other candidates?
Mmm, of course men's clubs' involvement, taking place since 2015, flourishing since 2017 and becoming the norm with professionism in 2022, has completely changed the landscape of women's football in Italy, so it's been quite hard for foreign players from the previous era to survive to these days, since it was a very different league back then, with less international big names and a quite amateurish background. Until last season's, the name of Finnish Nora Heroum could have been added to the ones you mentioned, since she was playing in Italy since season 2017-2018 in Brescia (and had subsequently been in Italy at Milan, Lazio, Parma and Sampdoria, despite a short stint in England just after Covid), but after the dismantling of Sampdoria's women's team at the end of the last season, she travelled back to her original club in Finland. Slovenian Kaja Eržen has also been in Italy since season 2027-2018, playing at Tavagnacco, Roma, Napoli, Fiorentina and now Ternana, although she actually didn't get much playing time with the newly promoted team so far. Another one who's worth mentioning is German Stephanie Breitner, who played at Fiorentina from 2018-2019 to 2024-2025, then at Napoli in the final part of the last season and at Ternana too right now. But yeah, I don't think there is any other player that's been in Italy for a longer time than Lana Clelland (and for sure no other veteran has been as much relevant, given the number of goals she has scored throughout totally different ages of Italian women's football). Some players could have flown under my radar, since it's not actually very long that I follow Italian women's football (or at least that I do with enough accuracy), but if any other name comes to my mind I'll let you know.
Thanks! Great calls, especially Kaja Erzen. So I guess there's: 1. Lana Clelland(2014!, Pink Bari) 2. Kaja Erzen(2017, Tavagnacco) 3. Davina Philtjens(2018, Fiorentina) 3. Stephanie Breitner (2018, Fiorentina 5. Perhaps Lindsey Thomas (2019, Roma). It's true, been a very rapid changes in Serie A W since proffesionalisation, like no italian female coaches since 2 seasons? In the beginning all the top teams had italian female coaches at some point, but I guess the growing proffesionalisation has made it more interesting for italian teams to look for coach talent among the huge male pool in the male system .Anyway I looked how long foreigners stay in Juve and it's remarkably short. Lindsey Thomas has been their the longest, since 2023, the rest came in 2024. Ofcourse things goes in cycles though, In Roma it's more stable. Juve really have changed a lot of players recently, probably getting a new coach is contributing .
Not sure if Lindsey Thomas, being in Italy since 2019, is in fact the 5th-placed name (I should do a more extensive check on all teams), but it's a fact that 2020, with Covid, marked another big moment of discontinuity and that many of the current veterans came indeed in Italy after that, in 2020-2021 season (for instance Vero Boquete, Christy Grismshaw and others). Another reason is that, in the latest years, some of the clubs currently playing in Serie A Femminile have been completely refounded: let's not forget, for instance, that Inter was a women's club not affiliated with the men's team until 2018 and that they were playing in Serie B back then; then, just after the men's club bough their sport-title and started supporting them, they won the league and were promoted to Serie A, but it didn't take long before the members of that team were rotated out, to the point that Henrietta Csiszàr, who joined the team in 2019 for their first season in the major division, is currently not only their most ancient foreign player, but even their captain! Then, there are clubs like Sassuolo, who basically refound theirselves every year with promising Italian youngsters and with under-the-radar foreign players who are found by their scouts and grown into players who can be given to biggest clubs to start back again. These kind of clubs are at the same time an endless experimental laboratory and fodder for the other clubs, so it's difficult to find long-time veterans in them (although part of the long-time veterans could have had a short stint there). Edit: anyway I just found a foreing player who, despite being just 28, has been in Italy for longer than Lana Clelland: you should have looked at the kind of players who are traditionally the longest-runners, @dravde, id est the Goalkeepers! I am talking about Camelia Ceasar: of course she's a very special case, because she's born in Rumania and always kept that citizenship, but her family transferred to Italy when she was just 5, way before she actually became a football player, so she can be considered as close to an actual Italian player as it gets. She anyway remains a Rumanian, so I guess no-one can beat her record as the longest-time foreign player in Italy. She even started in 2012-2013!!! Back then A.C.F. Torino (of course nothing to do with the men's team) was playing in Serie A Femminile (they were relegated at the end of that season) and she debuted in that team at age 14! In the subsequent season, she transferred to Brescia where she won the title at age 15 (she was the reserve GK, but she anyway collected 14 caps). At age 17 she even debuted in Champions' League (althugh the competition hadn't that name yet). All in all, quite a record-women for Italian women's football and it seemed worth mentioning her early history in detail, because people can see her in Parma's goal right now and know nothing about her previous achievements, way before the two Italian titles she won in Roma.
Great call, even started in 2008(!) for Torino youth club.Yea crazy times with people starting that young, that doesn't happen any longer.. Yea true bigger money has accelerated the numbers of foreigners. I'd say the big start of foreign influx was probably with Juve stepping in 2017 and then it gradualy gotten more international. In the beginning teams like Juve, Roma etc got international, but now almost all teams are international, teams like Como, Parma etc are just as international as Juve. Only Ternana I think is a really italian team. So it makes sense there's not many old international players left cause it used they used to be much rarer. Inter as you say has probably done the most remarkable jorney, and they are probably the least italian, often just fielding 2 italians and I think they will be the first side to field a whole non italian side, I think they already might have had on the pitch.
By the way, when I wrote Camelia Ceasar is Rumanian, I meant that she retained her Rumanian citizenship and that she plays for Rumania National Team (making her a foreign player for any practical purpose in Italian football), but of course, since she lives in Italy since age 5, I guess she now also have the Italian citizenship, so she's a very special case of "foreign" player. In her youth, a coach even tried to call her up to an Italy Youth National Team, but citizenship's laws in Italy back then didn't allow her to answer to that call, so she ended up choosing to represent Roumania instead. I have read that in 2019 (at a whopping 16 years from her arrival in Italy), she was still waiting for the Italian citizenship, because Milena Bertolini had thought about calling her to the WWC roster, if it had been possible.
For Italy she would only sit on the bench Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler but with Bertolini (Durante) I'm not sure
I won't be able to actually follow Wolfsburg-Juventus, going to start in abut an hour. Anyway, Starting line-ups: Wolfsburg: Johannes; Bjelde, Dijkstra, Wedemeyer, Linder; Minge, Popp, Pedemors; Huth (c), Beerensteyn, Endemann. Juventus: De Jong; Harviken, Kullberg, Lenzini; Carbonell, Wälti, Brighton, Bonansea (c); Stølen Godø; Vansgaaard, Ana Capeta. New signing Ana Capeta is already a starter (alongside Amalie Vangsgaard), while all the Italian offensive weapons are on the bench (Cristiana Girelli, Chiara Beccari, Michela Cambiaghi, Eva Schatzer). Are we sure this is the right choice? Does anyone know if Ana Capeta is so good to justify benching players there are better known and integrated with the team? Of course Cristiana Girelli use to work even better as a super-sub, but anyway, given her history against Wolfsburg, I could have seen her as a starter...
I answer to myself: of course Ana Capeta was indeed good enough, since she scored at 7' already! My initial doubts about today's line-up well go to show why Massiliamo Canzi is a football coach and I am not.
Well, in team relay only, though, since Italy have won both men's and women's double. (I had to look what was the translation of luge, since it was a word I had never used in English and it's so different from Italian slittino. How do you say that in German?)
Wow, Amalie Vangsgaard makes it 0-2 at 61'! This is a proper punishment for my scepticism: I had expressed my worries about the starting FW duo and both players ended up scoring, one goal per Half. It's definitely good that Juventus have a proper coach and don't need to depend on me!