A win and a draw in their opening two Women's Euro Group B matches rendered Italy's 3-1 defeat by Spain on Friday irrelevant as they progressed to the knockout stage of the competition for the first time since 2013.
Top-four finishers at six of the first seven Euro competitions, Italy have endured a barren spell since and have made the knockout round only twice in the 21st century. Friday's joy at the final whistle, despite the loss to Spain, showed what it meant to the Italian players.
“A magical night. We all dreamed together, we all dreamed because in the end everyone dreamed for a long time. We have reached our great goal and we do not want to stop, we want to continue dreaming and making Italians dream,“ midfielder Annamaria Serturini said on Saturday.
“”We have a great desire to do well, to continue dreaming, to continue writing important pages of a story that is only at the beginning.”
Italy finished second in Group B on four points, five behind Spain and one ahead of Belgium, who beat Portugal 2-1 to prevent them from progressing.
Those results set Italy up for a quarter-final meeting with Group A winners Norway in Geneva on Wednesday and, having survived a tricky group stage, the Italians are relaxed and full of self-belief.
“The next step is to prepare for the match against Norway, to take care of the details, which are the most important thing, and to go out on the field with a smile and a carefree attitude to live this magnificent dream,“ Serturini said.
“We should be able to take advantage of the opportunities we will have by raising the level,“ fellow forward Michaela Cambiaghi said. “Maybe we will have fewer opportunities, so we will have to be good at taking advantage of them.” - Reuters
