Norway and Italy will kick off the quarter-finals of the Women’s European Championship in Switzerland on Wednesday. It has been a while for both countries since they were among the best eight in Europe. Who will reach the semi-finals?
9:00 PM: Norway-Italy (Geneva)
High peaks, deep valleys: that is the European Championship story of the Norwegian women. Since the European title in 1987, they seemed to have a subscription to the European Championship final. In the nine subsequent editions, the Norwegians were in the final no less than five times. The last time was in 2013.
But from the 2017 European Championship in the Netherlands, things started to decline. With two eliminations in a row in the group stage of a European Championship, Norwegian women’s football ended up in a crisis.
Norway seems to be slowly crawling out of the swamp. Led by star player Ada Hegerberg, the Norwegians became group winners with a perfect score of nine points at this European Championship, although that happened in the weakest group, with host country Switzerland, Iceland and Finland as opponents.
The question is whether Italy can compete against Norway. Despite the rich football history, the Italians have been a small player in women’s football since the turn of the century. In recent years, the women’s team has become increasingly stronger. The current quarter-final place, thanks to the second place in a group with world champion Spain, Belgium and Portugal, is the best European Championship performance in twelve years.
Norway and Italy were groupmates of the Netherlands last year in the qualifying series for the European Championship. Both duels then ended in a draw: 1-1 and 0-0. In Geneva there will have to be a winner. Italy was last in the semi-finals of the European Championship in 1997.
Player to watch: She started on the bench in the opening match against Switzerland, but Norway’s national coach Gemma Grainger seems to no longer be able to ignore Signe Gaupset (20). The top talent from the Norwegian club SK Brann was involved in all of Norway’s goals in the last group match against Iceland (4-3) with two goals and two assists.