Italy v China

The Ultimate New Zealand Soccer Website | home

Italy v China

Italy Ease Into Quarter-Finals

by Jeremy Ruane

Italy eased into the last eight of the FIFA Women's World Cup Finals at the Stade de la Mosson in Montpellier on June 25, seeing off China 2-0 in front of 17,492 fans to keep alive their hopes of qualifying as one of the three European teams for the 2020 Olympic Women's Football Tournament in Japan.

The Italians set their stall out early, with Valentina Giacinti just failing to make contact with Manuela Giugliano's angled through ball in the third minute. Four minutes later, Valentina Bergamaschi, Giugliano and the overlapping Alia Guagni combined on the right, only for Lin Yiping to hook the resulting cross to safety.

The offside flag denied Giacinti a goal in the tenth minute, while three minutes later, the charismatic striker saw her snapshot swerve narrowly past the far post after she had been gifted possession by Han Peng.

Italy deservedly opened the scoring on the quarter hour. Giacinti got the better of Chinese captain Wu Haiyan on the right and set sail downfield before picking out Barbara Bonansea with her cross.

She held the ball up before steering it into the stride of Elisa Bartoli, steaming up in support from fullback. Peng Shimeng hurtled out of goal to thwart the Italian, but the ball broke perfectly into the stride of Giacinti, who rattled home the opening goal of the game.

China strove to get back into the game, but a team which had scored just once in their three group games struggled to make in-roads against a defence superbly marshalled by Sara Gama, alongside whom Elena Linari was in obdurate form - she had a superb game.

The first shot the "Steel Roses" managed to get on target was fired by Wang Yan in the 28th minute, a swerving, dipping, twenty-five yard volley which Laura Giuliani tipped over the crossbar.

She dealt with a long-range effort from Liu Shanshan eight minutes later, prior to which Italy had gone close to doubling their advantage. Bergamaschi played a ball over the top for Guagni to latch onto, and her effort was splendidly saved to her right by Peng - a terrific save.

Right on the stroke of half-time, Bartoli's fine block prevented Wang Shuang from rifling home the equaliser, while four minutes into the second half, China found themselves two goals down, Italian

substitute Aurora Galli ramming home a twenty-five yarder after Guagni intercepted a Chinese clearance and set up her team-mate to score her third goal of the tournament, all of them as a substitute.

Six minutes later, Giacinti gathered the ball on the left before dashing into the penalty area in anticipation of a return pass from Galli, to whom she'd played the ball. Galli duly delivered it into the area, where Giacinti went down under pressure. Brazilian referee Edina Alves Batista didn't think it was a penalty, and the Video Assistant Referee supported her verdict.

After this threat, China piled on the pressure in search of a way back into the match. Linari twice thwarted Li Ying in a three-minute spell just shy of the hour mark, while Wang Shuang curled one narrowly past the far post soon afterwards, before drawing a smothering save from Giuliani from twenty yards in the 65th minute.

Yang Li and Wang Shuang combined four minutes later, with the latter's delivery just too far in front of Li Ying, while Giuliani smothered a Han Peng volley following a cleared corner sixteen minutes from time.

China kept pressing, but with Linari in imperious form, there was no way through for the "Steel Roses", who resorted to shooting early and inaccurately as they gradually ran out of ideas.

Once Giuliani smothered a Song Duan cross four minutes from time, the game was up for China, who could have conceded a third goal in the dying minutes of the contest, with Giacinti and Giugliano both firing past Peng's right-hand post before the goalkeeper was forced to produce a fine save to deny Giacinti her second goal of the game, after she had taken on two defenders and engineered space for a shot.

Italy now take on the winner of the clash between Holland and Japan in their first FIFA Women's World Cup quarter-final since the inaugural tournament in 1991 - a long time between drinks at the top table for "Le Azzurre".

Italy: Giuliani; Guagni, Gama, Linari, Bartoli; Bergamaschi (Mauro, 63), Giugliano, Cernoia; Giacinti, Girelli (Galli, 39), Bonansea (Rosucci, 71)

China: Peng; Han, Wu, Lin, Liu; Wang Shanshan (Song, 61), Zhang, Wang Yan (Yao, 61), Gu (Yang, 46); Wang Shuang, Li

Referee: Edina Alves Batista (Brazil)

Knockout Matches