Italy and the Netherlands advance to the quarterfinals
Italy and the Netherlands qualified today for the Women’s World Cup quarter-finals by beating China and Japan 2-0 and 2-1 in the round of 16 respectively.
The Italian side opened the scoring in the quarter-hour by AC Milan’s Valentina Giacinti and extended the lead at the start of the second half, at 49, by Aurora Galli, who line up at Juventus.
In the other match of today’s ‘eighth’, the Netherlands felt more difficult to defeat the Japanese team, as the triumph goal came only at the 90th minute + 1, by advanced Lieke Martens, who turned out to be the figure of the match.
Martens was also the scorer of the Dutch’s first goal in 17 minutes, but Japan, the runner-up of the world, was able to respond even before the interval, restoring equality by Yui Hasegawa at 43.
Italian and Dutch have thus secured the qualification for the quarterfinals, the phase in which they will face and in which they have already defined the other three games, Norway-England, France-United States and Germany-Sweden.
