Andrea Soncin’s Italy achieved a historic victory against Norway to see them progress to the semi-finals of UEFA Euro 2025, thanks to a brace scored by Cristina Girelli.
Despite temporarily equalising, it is a missed penalty that will likely haunt Ada Hegerberg after she put her spot-kick wide for the second time in this tournament.
A late goal from Girelli ensured that it would be the Italians progressing to the final four, where they will face the current European champions, England after their win on penalties.
Crosses proved Norway’s downfall
Norway were experiencing a lot of problems down the wings, particularly the left, as they were unable to stop the Italians progressing forward.
This led to a lot of crosses being fired in, a seemingly recurring theme in a lot of matches in this edition of the tournament.
Failure to deal with these crosses is, of course, what resulted in Italy’s late winner as Girelli rose up above everyone else to head her attempt past Cecilie Fiskerstrand and give her side a memorable victory.
From an Italian point of view, it could not have fallen to a better player than Cristina Girelli. The striker has the most headed goals of any player in the top five divisions of women’s football this season.
Norway show a lack of intensity once again
Yet again, Norway always looked one step behind their opponents, especially in the first half, where they just could not keep up with Italy at all.
It was a common pattern in the group stage where Emma Grainger’s team just would not get started until late in the match, where they would wake up and grab one or two crucial goals.
But even after Ada Hegerberg drew the Norwegians level in this one, they did not kick on from this point and instead allowed Italy to regain the ascendancy of proceedings.
This, of course, led to the goal that knocked them out of another underwhelming tournament for a group of players that, on paper, should be challenging for major honours.
It is easy to give Cristina Girelli all the plaudits for firing her side into the semi-finals, but one performance that should not go unnoticed within that Italian side is that of Sofia Cantore.
After a relatively poor first half from both sides in terms of attacking quality, Cantore soon put this right, setting up Girelli for the opening goal of the night.
The second assist was simply magnificent as she crossed the ball perfectly towards Girelli in what might be considered as one of the best assists of the tournament up to this point.
The 25-year-old really stood out, and if she can replicate this in the semi-finals, then Italy could be in for more glory.
A historic victory for Italy
The victory over Norway was a hugely significant one for the Italians, marking the first time that they have reached the semi-finals of any major tournament in women’s football since 1997.
It was certainly a brave performance from Andrea Soncin’s side who have now etched themselves into the Italian history books. They showed no fear against a Norway side full of world-class players and got their reward for doing so.
Italy will now get ready for a semi-final clash with reigning champions England. It will certainly be another tough test for Italy, but if they can perform to the same levels as they did against Norway, then who knows what they can achieve?