‘Le azzurre‘ defeated China 2-0 in Montpellier at the end of a match where they showed greater tactical consistency than the Asians. Valentina Giacinti and Aurora Galli scored the two goals in the first and second half of the game respectively.
The head coach Milena Bertolini, on Monday, celebrated a very happy 53rd birthday with the knowledge to have obtained a historic result. In fact, it was since the inaugural edition in 1991 when the group phase directly led to the quarter-finals that the Italian national football team didn’t make it to the last eight of the World Cup.
For the next stage of the competition, the bearers of the Bel Paese will be called to confront the giants of this sport, starting on Saturday 29th with the Netherlands, the winner of European Champions. However, having beaten a footballing powerhouse and a two-time World Cup host who has departed the tournament before the quarter-finals for the first-time, Bertolini’s team gained the confidence to face the upcoming matches with the knowledge that they can worry any adversary with its technical and tactical maturity.
Having reached the quarter-finals the Italians are also much closer to Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games because the three best European teams of the World Cup are automatically granted Olympic passes. If the United States arrives in the semifinals, beating French hosts, together with three Europen teams, these will already be certain of qualifying for the Olympics. While, if all four teams in the semifinals are European, then the final for the 3rd and 4th place will represent a decisive play-off to determine the assignment of the last ticket to Tokio.
The highlights of the match, from the FIFA official channel