{"id":1483,"date":"2025-07-17T01:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T01:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1483\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T01:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T01:22:09","slug":"norway-1-2-italy-cristiana-girelli-sends-italians-through-to-first-european-semi-final-for-28-years-football-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1483\/","title":{"rendered":"Norway 1-2 Italy: Cristiana Girelli sends Italians through to first European semi-final for 28 years | Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italy have qualified for their first European semi-final since 1997 as Cristiana Girelli scored twice in a dramatic 2-1 win over Norway. <\/p>\n

The 35-year-old stepped up to deliver for her country once again, surviving a VAR review to tap home the opener before heading a last-gasp winner to set up a meeting with either England or Sweden, who play in Zurich on Thursday, in the last four.<\/p>\n

“It’s incredible, beautiful. In front of all these people, so many messages arrived from Italy the last few days,” elated Italy coach Andrea Soncin said.<\/p>\n

“It’s something fantastic. I think this is the biggest gift we can give to all those who watch us, to all those little girls, those young women who live football with passion.”<\/p>\n

\"Ada<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Ada Hegerberg missed her second penalty of these Euros finals as Norway crashed out<\/p>\n

Sandwiched between Girelli’s double were two key moments for Norway’s iconic striker, Ada Hegerberg, who squandered her second penalty of these finals, sweeping wide of the target.<\/p>\n

Atonement arrived six minutes later, levelling the tie, but the earlier spot-kick miss came back to bite.<\/p>\n

“It’s bitter, it’s really bitter,” Hegerberg reflected. “I must honestly say that I am proud of the group and how we have performed. We are close to being in the top four in Europe, but it’s not enough.”<\/p>\n

Norway have always been a nearly team at major tournaments. They were far too passive on the night, defensively disorganised, and failed to deal with Italy’s threat from wide.<\/p>\n

\"Norway's<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Sofia Cantore, right, set up both of Italy’s goals<\/p>\n

Both of Italy’s goals were created in the channels by Sofia Cantore, with Girelli’s 90th-minute winner testament to the veteran striker’s immense aerial ability, meeting a perfectly weighted cross with a graceful leap to direct her header just under the crossbar.<\/p>\n

Girelli – the oldest player to score more than once for a European nation in a single match at a major tournament – now has 61 goals for Italy, and the last three all went into the same net at the mountains end of the Stade de Geneve stadium.<\/p>\n

How Euro quarter-finals stand <\/p>\n

\"England<\/p>\n

All kick-offs at 8pm BST<\/p>\n

July 16
QF1: Norway 1-2 Italy (Geneva)<\/p>\n

July 17
QF3: Sweden vs England (Zurich)<\/p>\n

July 18
QF2: Spain vs Switzerland (Bern)<\/p>\n

July 19
QF4: France vs Germany (Basel)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy have qualified for their first European semi-final since 1997 as Cristiana Girelli scored twice in a dramatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-1483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}