Football · National
Milan’s women recover twice to beat Roma and reach the fifth-place mark
Milan won 3–2 on 25 January after trailing twice, moving level on 22 points with Como in the contest for the final Championship Round place.
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Three replies change the afternoon
AC Milan’s women defeated Roma 3–2 at the PUMA House of Football on 25 January in the sixteenth round of Serie A. Giada Greggi opened the scoring for Roma in the thirty-second minute, but Nadia Arrigoni equalised four minutes later from Angelica Soffia’s assist. Alice Corelli restored the visitors’ lead in the thirty-eighth minute, leaving Milan behind at the interval. The hosts changed the result early in the second half: Emmi Koivisto equalised in the forty-seventh minute and Valentina Cernoia supplied the winner in the fifty-fifth. Suzanne Bakker’s side reached 22 points, drawing level with fifth-placed Como in the race for the last Championship Round qualification position.
Roma’s coach identifies the break in performance
Roma coach Alessandro Spugna’s post-match assessment distinguished a satisfactory opening half from a poor second period. He said the team’s distances became too long after the break, individual contests were lost and the required application was missing. Those were the coach’s explanations for the reversal, rather than tactical conclusions inferred from the score. Spugna acknowledged that Milan deserved its second-half reward and called for a different response in Roma’s next match. That appointment was a Coppa Italia quarter-final second leg against Napoli at the Tre Fontane on 29 January. Roma held a 1–0 advantage from the first leg, but the coach stressed that qualification still had to be earned on the field.
A scorer’s view of the setback
Corelli, whose goal had given Roma its second lead, also described the defeat as a missed opportunity. In the club’s interview she said the team became fragmented after Milan’s equaliser and needed to change its response for the next game. Her comments situated the loss within Roma’s ambitions as the defending league champion: the side still had to fight for its objectives and could not keep making the same mistakes. The immediate focus was therefore Wednesday’s cup match rather than treating the Milan result as an isolated event. Roma’s separate match gallery confirms Greggi and Corelli as its scorers in the 3–2 defeat.
A result against the recent pattern
The federation’s pre-match facts show why the win changed the recent history of this pairing. Milan had won the clubs’ first five Serie A meetings, then gone ten without victory, with four draws and six defeats. Roma had won the previous three. Milan’s form before 25 January was also uneven: one win in seven league matches, following four victories in the preceding five. The one recent clean sheet had come in a 6–0 win against Napoli on 12 January. FIGC’s figures additionally recorded seven league points gained from losing positions by Milan before this fixture. Recovering twice against Roma added a further example of that ability to change a game after falling behind.
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