There is regret, and then there’s probably what the Juventus women are feeling after what could have been a signature win on the season — or even the last few years — slipped away on Wednesday.
Juventus
Women put forward a first-half effort that was, in a word, stunning. Against a true European giant in Lyon, the Bianconere not only took the lead but looked to be absolutely running away with things. They hit the French giants on the counter time and time again, building a 3-0 lead after just 37 minutes that pretty much nobody saw coming. Or anything close to it, really. It was so out of the realm of possibilities that you had to think that they only thing left was to see out the win.
Well, that was a little easier said than done.
Lyon didn’t just make a game of it in the second half. The eight-time Women’s Champions League winners roared back and saw longtime captain Wendie Renard score from the penalty spot in the 90th minute to even the score at 3-3 and put a major damper on what could have been a victory that put Juventus Women into the top three in the UWCL league phase table heading into the second half of the Matchday 4 schedule.
What could have been, right? Oh, what certainly could have been.
But that first half … oh that beautiful, beautiful first half. It provided us with this:
And this:
And also this:
Those three goals are all pretty great in their own unique way. Chiara Beccari’s opener was a great solo effort after a quick counterattack put her in that spot to score on a beautiful looping shot to the far post. Michela Cambiaghi’s finish from a tight angle to double the Juve lead was impressive as well. Then Tatiana Pinto’s strike on yet another counterattack was what felt like the cherry on top to a perfect kind of first-half effort that had Lyon all kinds of stunned.
There’s also this little matter that surely played a part into how the second half went:
- Juventus Women had all of three days in between their win over Genoa and facing Lyon.
- Lyon had over a week — and no weekend league fixture — in between games.
Seems like one team had a very real possibility of fading as the game went on and another was quite rested and able to stage a late comeback no matter what the score was. You can probably figure out which is which from here.
Regardless of that, this was going to be a stunning result based on how the first half went. It turned out to be a stunning result for how it both started and finished. It’s unfortunate because a win would have vastly increased Juve’s chances of making in the UWCL play-off round, if not even made a top four spot a small possibility. Instead, Juventus Women are basically in the same spot in the table as they were entering Wednesday night’s matchup in Biella. And for that, especially with how they played in the opening 45 minutes, just makes it such an unfortunate result that could have been so much better.
