In the 2nd Half some changes (in particular Sofia Cantore and Barbara Bonansea) helped Italy to finally break Serbia's defense. Italy 3-0 Serbia, FT. Goals by Valentina Bergamaschi, Arianna Caruso and Barbara Bonansea. But at the moment it doesn't give us the chance to battle for the first place in the next match, because the score of Denmark-Sweden is currently 1-0 at HT, with a goal by market-star of the moment Cecilie Fløe.
Different coaches. Andree Jeglertz have better stayed in Denmark Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler better for Lohmann
Bad result for Italy, but kinda good for Serie A. Denmark started with 6 Serie A players, so I guess it shows that there is some strength in the league. I think Italy might no be to far away from that number of players btw in the next game against Sweden. I think they will start with Cantore, Diguglielmo,Linari, and Caruso. If they also starts with Girelli, that's actually just 6 italians on the pitch..
She had already been against Serbia, three days ago, when Cristiana Girelli had left the pitch in the 2nd Half. Starting line-ups: SWEDEN (4-3-3): Falk; Holmberg, Andersson, Juntila-Nelhage, Lundkvist; Angeldahl, Schroder, Zigiotti Olme; Vinberg, Blackstenius, Jusu Bah. Coach Gerhardsson. ITALY (3-5-2): Giuliani; Lenzini, Salvai, Soffia; Di Guglielmo, Caruso, Giugliano, Dragoni, Oliviero, Girelli, Cantore. Coach: Soncin. Compared to Saturday's match, Lucia Di Guglielmo and Elisabetta Oliviero as Wing-Backs instead of score-opener Valentina Bergamaschi and Elisa Bartoli; Martina Lenzini in defense with one less holding Midfielder (Giada Greggi) and Sofia Cantore (good idea!) starts over Benedetta Glionna. I am not so sure about starting Giulia Dragoni again, who was so-so vs Serbia. Elena Linari out again: it looks like she fell out of grace after her scarce playing time with London City Lionesses lately. Italy only needs a draw to keep the 2nd place (the 1st place is unrealistic, since it would need Serbia to beat Denmark ). I am not sure it will be an easy task.
Bah, I relied on an unofficial site and I had the starting line up wrong! Actually there is Martina Piemonte on the pitch instead of Cristana Girelli and Giada Greggi instead of Giulia Dragoni. Well, at least it seems to make more sense as a starting line-up. Going to start in minutes.
I watch on RAI2 Magnifique ! SWE 0 - 1 ITA Edit 0 - 2 Italia in fire, without any doubt the best team on the field
Sweden 0-2 Italy at HT. Of course Denmark are beating Serbia by 4-1 in the other match, but it's not like anyone was really hoping for something different. Italy only run a risk with a ill-minded backpass by Arianna Caruso that almost became an assist for Sweden, but for the rest Italy dominated the wings, especially the right one with Lucia Di Guglielmo and Sofia Cantore. But the 1st goal came from the Left Wing (actually a cross from the Right Wing that crossed the whole Swedish box and connect with Elisabetta Oliviero on the other side). By the way, Elisabetta Oliviero completed her excellent 1st Half with an assist for Lazio's team-mate Martina Piemonte who scored the second goal with un unbeatable header at 45'. Very good Italy: Sweden looks too bad to be true. Only downside is that we had something like 11 or 12 Corner-Kicks and we wasted most of them! I hope the second place in the group A will give us a reasonable path for the WWC? I actually don't know much about the rest of EURO qualifiers' fornula...
Second or third place doesn't make a difference for play-offs but might give a easier draw for Olympic qualification. Round 1: Thirty-two teams will advance from the league phase and be drawn into two paths to compete 7–13 October 2026. Path 1: The runners-up and third-place teams from League A will be drawn against the group winners and two best-ranked runners-up from League C. The League A teams will be seeded and host the second legs of their respective ties. Path 2: The fourth-place teams from League A and the group winners from League B will be drawn against the runners-up and third-place teams from League B. The fourth-place League A teams and League B group winners will be seeded and host the second legs of their respective ties. Round 2: Sixteen teams will advance from Round 1. The winners from Path 1 will be drawn against the winners from Path 2 to compete 26 November – 5 December 2026. The Path 1 winners will be seeded and host the second legs of their respective ties. The winners will be sorted based on their overall league ranking, with the top seven winners qualifying for the Women's World Cup, and the lowest-ranked winner advancing to the inter-confederation play-offs.
Make an old story short: we haven't learn yet how to defend Swedish Corners (remember Sweden-Italy at the WWC 2023?) . We took two goals in three minutes to atrociously defended CKs. After all, it's good that we managed to at least take home a draw. But there is more than that: I don't know why Andrea Soncin waited until 75' to make any substitution, while Sweden already had 4 or 5 and had put in the likes of Fridolina Rolfö and Rose Kafaji. Also, we had 4 (deserved) Yellow Cards in this 2nd Half, including two players who were under threat of suspension: Arianna Caruso and Angelica Soffia. Good thing that, at least, if I understood correctly, the next match will be vs a League C's team, because we'll have two suspended players. By the way, Angelica Soffia, who had been good in the 1st Half, has made at least three crucial mistakes towards the end of the game (including the one that led to the YC to try to make up for it): she should have been subbed-out in the last 20', instead she played the full match and Martina Lenzini was subbed-out instead. So there were thing I didn't get in how this 2nd Half was played, both on the pitch and by the bench. Let's hope that we are going to smotthy qualify for the World Cup anyway. When the draw for the play-offs will be? Useless final comment: during the match, while Martina Piemonte was gesturing towards the referee, i found that, among the countless tattoos she has, there is an unusual writing on the palm of her hand (but I didn't have the time to see what it reads).
Possible opponents for Round 2: Serbia Poland Ukraine Slovenia Wales Switzerland Portugal Scotland Czech Republic Turkey Finland Belgium Albania Northern Ireland Slovakia Israel
Some of the possible Round 2 opponent look quite dangerous! And they will be the ones who'll most probably advance to the final match vs Italy! So I assume there are no limitations and a team could end meeting a team that was in their same initial group? Like Italy vs Serbia?