Napoli confirm being a disruptive team, mainly interested to defend and to climb the rankings through 0-0 draws. It has to be said, though, that Fiorentina attacked all game and would have had enough chances to "break" the lock, if Agnese Bonfantini and Madalen Janogy had shown a better aim: a team that's fighting for the title shouldn't afford that. What do you think of the professional elbow-in-the-face by Gloria Slišković on counter-attacking Sofie Bredgaard at 75', guys? Could it have deserved a direct Red Card instead of just a Yellow? With about 20' to play, it could have changed the game. As usual these days, I'll go to bed early and I won't wait for the video-highlights of the game that's just finished to be uploaded : I'll possibly post them tomorrow with a short comment, but for the moment I'll only give the score. Despite the recent change at the helm, Sampdoria lost their home game vs Inter by 0-3: the goals were scored by Inter's international stars, Tessa Wullaert (a brace) and Lina Magull. Today's games: Napoli 0-0 Fiorentina Sampdoria 0-3 Inter Highlights of the first game of the afternoon:
Should be a red card but from the position of the referee difficult to see where Sliskovic's elbow hit her opponent.
Say what you want about Napoli but they defend quite well with intensity and also dirtyness. I would hope they would tire off at the end, but they didn't. Sampdoria is clear favourites of going down,they doesn't seem to be able to grind out results the way Napoli can. Fiorentina should clearly have done better though, hope Fuentes start Bredgaard next time, think she showed that she can bring some energy to the team
Classic Napoli this season, they will murder player for a point, but mind you just 1 point, not more and you are ofc correct
In the end, the highlights were uploaded in time for me to see them before going to sleep. Although Inter only scored their second around the hour mark, it doesn't look like Sampdoria was ever in the game (apart from Tori Della Peruta's lonely chance in the 1st Half) and Inter, beyond the goal, hit the woodwork thrice: one-way traffic.
The one being played this week-end is the first match-day of the second round of the league and there were quite some different outcomes from the first round's matches. The first difference of today was the most surprising one, since Sassuolo managed to stop Juventus (at their home!) on a 2-2 draw. Juventus was clearly influenced by the Champions' League's campaign, since they allowed themselves quite some heavy rotation: for instance, there were starters as Lysianne Proulx (the young Canadian GK: no hope for the Italian GKs, as we were recently noting ) and Alisha Lehmann, and this quite surely conditioned the game. About the Swiss striker, one could suspend the judgement , because Alisha Lehmann sure wasted some outrageous chances, but on the other hand she also scored Juventus' 2nd goal (the 1st one had been scored early by Cristiana Girelli); Lysianne Proulx, instead, looked like a clear downgrade to Pauline Peyraud-Magnin: Gina Chmielinski was good at scoring her brace (lifting herself up to 6 goals scored in the season so far), but the GK should have covered the goal way better in the first case (I don't use to say such things about Laura Giuliani only ) and was clearly to blame in the second instance, when she passed the ball to the opponent striker. Well, Sassuolo was often unlucky this season: today, for a change, it was them making the best of their opponent's defensive blunders. Juventus anyway keep a good advantage on the chasing rivals. The Roman derby had also been different in the 1st match-day: back then Lazio had managed to get a draw (and it had been the first signal of a quite problematic season for Roma); today, Roma managed to get the three points instead. Usual problems though: despite a clear dominance, the Champions of Italy only managed to score their two goals in the 2nd Half and they even allowed Lazio to get a lifeline in the late game through an own goal by Frederikke Thøgersen from CK action at 88'. Roma's goals had been scored by Lucia Di Guglielmo and Valentina Giacinti (finally clinical), but, before that, many chances had been wasted, especially by Emilie Haavi and Benedetta Glionna (that's been once again preferred to Evelyne Viens: Alessandro Spugna sometimes shows some quite stubborn choices; maybe he wants to save the Canadian striker for the upcoming Champions' League's clashes? Or is she slightly injured or anyway physically not completely ok, despite always regularly sitting on the bench? ). Anyway, Roma can now be considered back in contention for the title; Lazio remain in the low waters of relegation. What didn't change from the first match-day of the season was Como's 1-0 win vs Milan, thus confirming the initial impression that Milan don't really belong to the title pool and Como, who passed them today, could take their place instead. The decider was scored in the 1st Half by 23 yo US striker Alex Kerr, at her first goal in Serie A Femminile. I uselessly waited until 22:00 that FIGC YouTube channel uploaded the video-highlights: I suspect all the editors are actually watching the Nations' League's game of Men's National Team vs France. Oh, well, it will be up tomorrow, I guess. The recap: Juventus 2-2 Sassuolo Roma 2-1 Lazio Milan 0-1 Como The highlights: