Italy 1-0 Denmark at HT. The goal was a good, pinpoint header by Martina Piemonte from a Manuela Giugliano GK. We'd need to score from open play also, but this is more difficult. We anyway kept control of the game and basically Denmark weren't dangerous at all (I guess they hadn't any shot on goal in this 1st Half). Of course, 1-0 is a very fragile advantage: Sweden managed to keep it for all of the game on Tuesday; can Italy do the same? I'd prefer they'd try to score a 2nd goal. I anyway like a lot Giada Greggi's and, especially, Giulia Dragoni's contribution to Italy's possession in the midfield.
...And, in the end, a must-win match has ended in a draw. How disappointing (Denmark even missed a PK with Pernille Harder, by sending it on the post). For records, Sofia Cantore was stopped by a muscle-injury, so she wasn't on today's roster. Of course, this doesn't justify anything, since it was known since the beginning that she was off-season. Apart from the path to qualify for the next World Cup, it's worth making some observations about Italy's performance since the end of the Euro 2025. In the latest months after that competition, Italy has played 6 matches (4 friendly matches and 2 Nation's League matches); their record in these 6 matches is 4 losses and 2 draws, with 2 goals scored and 9 goals against. This record is abysmal. Ok, they mostly played teams that were well ahead of them in FIFA rankings (Japan, Brazil, USA twice, Sweden and Denmark), but nonetheless this is not the record you would expect from an EURO's semifinalist. Of course, Italy overachieved at the EURO (at least in terms of final position: actually, having quite reasonable results vs mid-tiers teams was enough to earn their placement because of the insanely lucky path the draw designed for them). Was it really just a fluke? Or did something seriously go wrong in these last months? It's a fact that Andrea Soncin needs to find a way to invert this trend as soon as possible, because the team looks out of ideas and totally unable to change the inertia of the games (and/or to score goals when needed).
The highlights (by the way, I found what was wrong with the previous ones: YouTube had decided by itself to turn on the so-called "automatic dubbing", a tool that, by the way, doesn't work at all at the moment, at least in Italian. Had to manually switch it off from the settings' menu ): Not much to comment on, apart what I have already written.
Sorry for the random silly off-topic, but yesterday there was a Denmark's player called Mille Gejl on the pitch: I am not even sure if the Italian comment-guy was spelling her name correctly, but I couldn't help been reminded for all the length of the game of Bruce&Bongo's "Geil". Who was living in the '80s can probably understand, all the rest of the people won't think anything of it.
Feels like Italy follow Juve's performance pretty well. Last season many Juve players had great seasons Bonansea, Girelli, Caruso, Cantore and Salvai come back strong from injury. No this season Girelli and Bonansea has been going down and perhaps the chemistry is a bit less when important players like Caruso and Cantore has gone abroad, last part is speculation though. But I think keeping Cantore and Caruso would've lifted other Juve players . It's anyway time to put Girelli and Bonansea on the bench and try to think about the future. From them you know what you get, diminishing returns, but with new players you know they probalby gonna get stronger given time. I can understand though why Soncin wants Bonansea in, she got a certain x-factor about her, no other player in Italy can dribble like her, or got the stubborness to do so, but it's getting less and less the ratio good/bad from her. Btw I'm dissapointed in Dragoni. Think she's not connected to the team at all, feels like she's in her own bubble.. She got good skills, passing and shooting, but her game isn't there. Perhaps she could be moved to a forward position, where she gets closer to goal? For me they should try Arrigoni a bit on Dragoni/Sevirini's positon
Thanks for updating the thread! This time I was aware of the semifinal beng scheduled for this week, but I've been ill for two days and I couldn't follow them and post about them.
Two matches today (this match-day will extend to Monday): the first of them was a relegation-clash between Parma and Genoa and it ended with a 1-1 draw that leaves everything unchanged. Of course, the final score is worse for Genoa, who should have won vs a direct rival and now remain in the last position with one less game to go; on the other hand it was an away game for them and Parma, at home, wasted a chance to basically kill the fight to avoid the relegation (that's reserved to the last-placed team). The home team had indeed gone ahead first with an header by Iris Rabot; Genoa, though, in the 2nd Half, managed to equalize with Valery Vigilucci and that was it. Napoli should have won the home-match vs Lazio if they really wanted to challenge Juventus for the precious third place, but it was Lazio who left with the full three points, with a goal in the middle of the 2nd Half by Margherita Monnecchi (who had just been subbed-in). The win seemed legitimate, since the crossbar stopped a good shot by Flaminia Simonetti in the 1st Half, while an header by Clarisse Le Bihan in the 2nd Half crashed on the post. We're going to see with the upcoming matches how this result will shape the top of the rankings. Recap: Parma 1-1 Genoa Napoli 0-1 Lazio Highlights:
Parma is really too good to go down I think, but they lack a clear goalscorer,. They've made 10 goals this season which puts them behind Genoa(14 goals ) and Ternana(15 goals). I think Parma is gonna make the cut in the end though, but in the 3-points system of our age, winning one game means as much as grinding home three draws. Parma has won one game and drew 8...
The first game of this afternoon was actually Como-Ternana, that ended in a quite sleep-inducing 0-0 though. It somehow makes sense that this two teams didn't want to run too many risks: both have changed their coach in the middle of the season, both are trying to climb back up after a difficult spell; it's not like they hadn't their moments (Giada Pellegrino Cimò's nice counterattack-goal was disallowed for off-side, Como at times have put some pressure on Katja Schroffenegger), but in the end the draw was probably good for everyone (especially for Ternana, who keep their one-point advantage over Parma). The Red Card for Agnete Marcussen didn't actually influence the match (it happened at 90'+2') but Como will miss an important DF for suspension in the next game vs Milan. But there was another much more thrilling game, that caused some buzz on this thread : The official answer is that I don't know exactly why 23 yo reserve GK Sandra Estévez Ogalla had to play, but the most likely answer is that Laura Giuliani came back from NT duty carrying a little injury that triggered again a few minutes before today's game: this article from Milan AC's official website says that the Spanish GK was "called at the last minute to replace Laura Giuliani"; so likely it's something that happened during the warm-up: let's hope is nothing serious. Anyway, as it has been already anticipated, Sandra Estévez Ogalla saved a PK by Emma Stølen Godø at the end of the 1st Half and this was a crucial moment of the match, since just after HT Thea Kyvåg scored a goal of her own (since she had made it clear that just giving beautiful assists like she had done in the 1st Half wasn't enough, if Kayleigh van Dooren was going to miss sitters by sending them crashing on the post ). The 0-1 stood until the end (Milan was even closer to make it a 0-2, again with Kayleigh van Dooren, this time on the crossbar, than Juventus to equalize) and the upset was made: given the respective positions of the two teams and the fact that Juventus was playing at home, I can call it an upset, but after all there are now just 4 points separating the two teams and Juventus are doing all they can to look like a random middle-of-the-ranking contender and to put their 3rd place at risk; now they have Lazio just one point behind them and it looks good for them that next week they will visit Genoa while Lazio will have to play the derby vs Roma, but it's a fact that the chase for the Champions' League's placements is absolutely open! Finally, the evening match between Roma and Fiorentina ended in a 1-1 draw. Fiorentina went ahead at the end of the 1st Half with Madelen Janogy and Roma had quite a hard time finding a way to get back in the match. In the end the player who saved the day for the leaders of the rankings was the youngster who had showed wonders at the last U-17 WWC in Morocco, 18 yo (almost, her birthday is a week and a day from now) Giulia Galli, whose header set the final score with about 15 to go (first goal for her in the league this season). Now Inter can climb at -4 from Roma with a win tomorrow in Sassuolo. Will they manage to re-open the race for the title? Recap: Como 0-0 Ternana Juventus 0-1 Milan Roma 1-1 Fiorentina Highlights: This match-day ends tomorrow at noon with Sassuolo-Inter: so I'll probably update this thread with that result and the current standing in the late afternoon or in the evening of tomorrow.
Yea, that was quite brutal from the 20 minutes I watched, but that girl, born in october 2006, Pellegrino Cimò looked really interesting, rookie of the year?Wonder if she recieves some interest from bigger clubs? I could see her fit in Fiorentina, with Janogy, Bredgaard and Catena, would be a very dynamic attack, with lots of passing and combinations.. Now it's getting interesting with the schedule. Roma got these teams left: Lazio(a),Como(h),Juventus(a),Ternana(h),Sassuolo(a),Genoa(h) Inter got: Sassuolo(a), Napoli(h),Lazio(h),Genoa(a),Milan(h), Juventus(a),Como(a) I think it's safe to say Inter got the tougher schedule as the difference in their schedules are that Inter got Milan and Napoli left while Roma got Ternana.That said, these teams fighting for their lives will be tough and if Inter wins the remainging games, Roma doesn't have much marginal.I have a hard time seeing Inter not "screw up" somewhere though I give Roma 80 percent chance of winning the scudetto and if they win against Lazio, a key game, I think it's 95 percent..
@dravde's analysis of Roma's and Inter's schedule is excellent, but of course it could have only taken a real meaning as long as Inter was able to take home the threee points from the away match vs Sassuolo today. They did, so the fight for the title officially becomes interesting! The first early goal, by Henrietta Csiszár, looked quite random and it took most of the rest of the game to Inter to find another (although meanwhile Sassuolo didn't actually look dangerous). In the end it was always-dependable Tessa Wullaert who closed the contest with a brace between 77' and 90'+7' (!). It's interesting that Inter gave some final minutes on the pitch to Annika Paz, just 17 yo, a recent Argentinian signing from the winter-market (end of January): the attention to youngsters is a tradition of the club and surely Giampiero Piovani likes to broaden the depth of the team this way, as he was used to do in Sassuolo, both with youngsters and with rough talents from overseas. Today's match: Sassuolo 0-3 Inter Today's highlights: The new rankings:: 1.Roma 37 30-15 2.Inter 33 36-15 3.Juventus 28 22-11 4.Lazio 27 22-17 5.Napoli 25 21-18 6.Fiorentina 25 24-23 7.Como 24 17-16 8.Milan 24 25-23 9.Ternana 12 15-31 10.Sassuolo 12 12-26 11.Parma 11 10-21 12.Genoa 8 14-32 There are currently three ties: Napoli are ahead of Fiorentina, since they have already beaten them twice (1-0 at home and 1-2 away); Como have won the home match vs Milan in the first leg by 1-0 and they will clash vs them again next week; finally, Ternana have won by 0-1 in Sassuolo in the same match-day of Como-Milan, so that's another tie that will be solved next week! (Ternana's comeback looks fantastic, if you think that they were last-placed at the end of the 1st leg and now they have three teams behind them! )
Hehe, true there @blissett you can't assume Inter will take it, but it felt like a given . I feel what's speak for Inter is the fact that their attackers are cooking. Roma on the other hand has been very realiant on a brilliant Giugliano and random players stepping up. Funny enough it hasn't been a very prolific season for Roma's strikers, Corelli started well though. But I guess there lies a strenght that can be unlocked. I feel that Viens is super dangerous, few matches her speed, but somehow she misses the goal all the time allthough she get clear chances. If they can get her scoring it might be the difference and I got a feeling they may.. Nice with Inter scouting in Argentina, I feel that should Serie A W should go for markets that's little scouted but has some kind of connection to Italy. Argentina and Balkans and Easter Europe in general are natural areas for me for Serie A W clubs to look for player. Now Denmark is actually by far the most common source of foreign players, which I think is good also. Question is if WSL is gonna sniff them up eventually, like they did with my fellow country woman
It looks like Juventus definitely want to waste all of their chances of playing the Champions' League again next season: they can't find a way to go beyond a 0-0 draw in Genoa, at the home of the last-placed team of Serie A Femminile, and arguably the hosts even had more chances to score than the visitors (although no-one of them actually looked very dangerous, while Juventus forced two good saves from Camilla Forcinella, one per half, on shots from Estela Carbonell and Amalie Vangsgaard). Not sure why, but Juventus, today, was playing young Austrian GK Larissa Rusek (21 yo) in goal. Inter wasted a good chance to chase Roma at the 1st place, because they had gone ahead by 2-0 in the 2nd Half vs Napoli, but they weren't able to retain their advantage. The goals for the host had been scored by Haley Bugeja (7th goal for her in the league) and Tessa Wullaert (12th goal, she's the current top-scorer of Serie A Femminile), but then the usual Cecilie Fløe's show started: at 79' she scored by connecting with a deflected shot by Manuela Sciabica and at 86' she made one of her trademark runs on the wing and delivered a cross that only needed to be pushed into goal with an header by Hanna Barker. @dravde, what were you saying about Inter not "screwing up" somewhere? It has to be said, though, that Napoli's GK Beatrice Beretta had an excellent game: she's still 22, and she could have a bright future ahead of her. Roma could have anyway stumbled, because Lazio had scored in the 1st Half of the evening derby with Nikola Karczewska and had kept that score for most of the 2nd Half, while Roma's coach Luca Rossettini was sent-off for dissent after a goal was disallowed for a quite clear fould by Alice Corelli. Then, suddenly, with about 10 minutes to go, Lazio's GK Francesca Durante changed the course of the game with two big mistakes : letting in an harmless shot by Manuela Giugliano and mis-judging a "shross" by Frederikke Thøgersen, thus setting the final score on a 1-2 (since, at the other side of the pitch, Rachele Baldi made a crucial save at 88' instead). So Roma could have lost ground to their rivals and they gain points over all of them instead; meanwhile Juventus say "Thank you very much!", because they also gain one point over Lazio despite their depressing draw in Genoa. A final note: in this game, Roma gets back Emilie Haavi, who is no more injured. She could be a crucial resource for this final part of the league. The matches: Genoa 0-0 Juventus Inter 2-2 Napoli Lazio 1-2 Roma The highlights:
Gotto say Roma is a bit like old Juve this season, bit lucky and kinda experienced. I think Giugliano has been the hero in quite a lot of games. Kinda a mystery why teams doesn't track her down better. They should know Roma is always seeking her just outside the box.And btw why can't Giugliano get into those positions in the naitonal team, she is seriously one of the best long range shooter in the world? Anyway this Lazio, which I like very much, I think squandered the 2nd half a bit. They had too much respect for Roma and just focused on defendeing. I don't think Roma is that much better player for player, so Lazio should've kept on trying to threaten. Ofc Durante's misstakes can't be ignored, sad, thought she was on her way up. Hope she can get back to the right track
I hope I didn't keep too many people on their toes, but sometimes, when there is a match in the evening and I am particulary tired, I prefer to wait for the subsequent morning to post my update (especially if I am free from work in that morning: today, in Italy, the schools are closed for a referendum, since the schools themselves are used as polling stations ). The first match that was played yesterday was a 0-0 draw between Fiorentina and Parma. Despite the home team repeatedly giving the ball away in defense at the beginning of the match, nothing happened and we'll have to wait for 90'+5' for an actually dangerous chance, that fell on Michela Catena's feet, but was saved by a Defender. Quite mediocre match and third consecutive draw for Parma. It was a draw between Ternana and Sassuolo also, but at least with goals (the teams had one each and even a disallowed one each ). Sassuolo's goal was scored by Belgian MF Kassandra Missipo, who had an excellent match, while the home team equalized with an header by Valeria Pirone, an invaluable asset for her team, since she's at her 7th goal in this season already (at age 37!!! ). Although this draw keeps the two teams even in the rankings, it's anyway a better result for Ternana, because with it they have won the direct clash vs Sassuolo (they had won by 0-1 at their home in the first round), so they will remain ahead should the two teams have the same points at the end of the league. Finally, Milan-Como in the evening was yet another 0-0 draw and you can see that who edited the video-highlights was scraping the bottom of the barrel for some meaningful actions. One of the few was a mistake by Laura Giuliani (who made up for that with the only difficult save of the evening), who was indeed back in Milan's goal after her injury from last week. A pet peeve of mine: I can't understand why both teams have to play wearing their secondary kits, when the primary ones would be different enough already. So, in the end, 5 out of the 6 games of this match-day were draws (with three 0-0 ones) . Basically, the only team who reaped any reward from this match-day is Roma, who have won the derby and have increased their advantage over their rivals for the title. Yesterday's matches: Fiorentina 0-0 Parma Ternana 1-1 Sassuolo Milan 0-0 Como Yesterday's hghlights: The almost unchanged rankings:: 1.Roma 40 32-16 2.Inter 34 38-17 3.Juventus 29 22-11 4.Lazio 27 23-19 5.Napoli 26 23-20 6.Fiorentina 26 24-23 7.Como 25 17-16 8.Milan 25 25-23 9.Ternana 13 16-32 10.Sassuolo 13 13-27 11.Parma 12 10-21 12.Genoa 9 14-32 The ties remain unchanged, with the only difference that now the advantage of the teams who are ahead is permanent. So Napoli are ahead of Fiorentina, Como are ahead of Milan and Ternana are ahead of Sassuolo, and this will stand should these teams finish even when the league ends.
Hehe, I think the Milan-Como game was one of the worst I've ever seen, just saw the last 30minutes though. Very sad how Arrigoni has been chained in some kind of defensive role. In the end Milan actually went for it, like the last 10 minutes, they went up with like 5-6 people towards the goal and you could see Como dropped their game completely. Weird Milan waited so long to go for the kill...Ofc I know maybe you cannot sustain the energy for long, but it must be something between 0 and 100. This I feel Roma does pretty well, they are good at putting an immense pressure on the opponent, Juve on the other hand is not so good on that this season
In what I guess was her first start for Bay FC, Cristiana Girelli had an assist (for the 2nd goal) and another crucial pass, after defending the ball with her body, leading to the 3rd goal , in a 1-3 away win for her team vs North Carolina Courage (who, by the way, were starting Evelyn Ijeh instead ).
I couldn't find yet the usual official highlights of the Coppa Italia's matches of today (2nd legs of the semifinals) so at the moment I'll have to recur to the videos from Sky (that I hope are not geo-blocked). The 1st leg in Roma had ended with a 1-1 draw, so everything was still open at the Arena Civica in Milan this afternoon. Roma, though, scored two unanswered goals in the 1st Half, with Manuela Giugliano and Evelyne Viens (I'll underline that both were assisted by Giulia Dragoni ), while Inter pushed and pushed for all of the 2nd Half, with goal-line savings and the woodwork being always against them. Only when it was too late, with just a few minutes of additional time to play before the final whistle, they finally found a goal, from FK, with Karólína Vilhjálmsdóttir, but there was no more time to catch the final! In the the other semifinal, Juventus was already starting from the 0-2 in Firenze from two weeks ago and scored another before 10' with Ana Capeta, who doubled the advantage at the beginning of the 2nd Half with an header. It's good for Juventus to have found this prolific Portuguese striker, because if they had to count on their other forwards... Take a look at what a sitter Amalie Vangsgaard managed to miss in the 1st Half from a Chiara Beccari's assist: she literally had an open net in front of her, it's almost unbelievable how she allowed GK Cecilie Fiskerstrand to have an hand on that shot. Later in the 2nd half, Fiorentina scored one back with Iris Omarsdottir, but it was of course too little too late. So the final, to be played on the week-end of 23rd-24th of May (the exact day and time hasn't been disclosed yet), will be Roma-Juventus. Sounds familiar? Well, it's because it's the same final from one year ago (as well as the one from seasons 2021-2022 and 2022-2023; in 2023-2024 Juventus took a break ). Also it was the final of Supercoppa Italiana in three of the last four editions. Roma in particular have played all the Coppa Italia's finals that were played since 2020 (it's 5 of them, this season's one will be the 6th), but they only won two of them. Juventus, instead, have only played three in that same span of time, but they have won them all (of course always vs Roma ): will the outcome be different this time? We're going to see! Recap: Inter 1-2 (2-3 aggr.) Roma Juventus 2-1 (4-1 aggr.) Fiorentina Highlights: Inter-Roma Juventus-Fiorentina
For records, the official highlights of Coppa Italia's semifinals's 2nd legs have eventually been posted. They are significantly longer than the Sky's ones that I had previously posted, so here they are for you, guys.