Entering the 2024-25 season, the Juventus Women squad had plenty of question marks. There were still a good amount of familiar names, but at the same time there was a new manager filling out the starting lineup in Max Canzi and a roster that had plenty of changes take place both with big-name players leaving and new players coming in.
But as the new campaign got going, they just kept winning. And winning. And winning.
With four games to go in the Poule Scudetto, the title race is officially over — and Juve are back to being the best that Italy has to offer.
Thanks to a pair of goals from Cristiana Girelli right before halftime and then less than two minutes into the second half, Juventus Women beat AC Milan 2-0 on Friday night in Biella to clinch the club’s sixth Scudetto and first in three years. A win over Milan was what Juve needed to clinch the Serie A Femminile title — and that’s exactly what they got. It allowed them to go up a whopping 13 points over second-place Inter and 14 over the previously two-time defending champions Roma, who were responsible for ending Juve’s streak of five straight during the 2022-23 campaign.
But now the Bianconere returned the favor for the team that was the preseason favorite to make it three straight titles.
Girelli, as she has done all season long, was at the center of what her team did up front. With her two goals against Milan, she pushed her season total to 19 — which puts her on the cusp of her first 20-goal season since 2020-21. The first goal came from the penalty spot in the 45th minute to give Juve a 1-0 lead right before the half.
It was the second goal that showed just how quick this team can strike.
Sofia Cantore — who is in the midst of the best season of her young career — flicked on a long ball from midfield with the outside of her foot on to Girelli, who did the rest. After controlling the ball with her first touch, Girelli used a quick move to get some separation from her defender and chipped the onrushing Noemi Fedele in the Milan goal to double Juventus Women’s lead and pretty much put things on ice.
It was Girelli’s league-leading 19th goal. She’s now a virtual lock to be the league’s top scorer since the aforementioned 2020-21 season in which she found the back of the net 22 times.
Friday night was also Juventus’ league-best 10th clean sheet — which, considering how the defense was playing early in the season when they allowed a combined five goals in their first two wins of the new campaign, might not have been expected.
But this season has shown that the worries of the summertime are very much not present now. The blend of veterans like Girelli and others along with Cantore and other talented youngsters proved to be the right kind of roster for Canzi — who previously had very little managerial in Italian women’s football — to get Juve back to the mountain top.
Even in a season in which one of their best players, midfielder Arianna Caruso, left during the final days of the winter transfer window, the Bianconere were able to hold their lead atop the league standings and into the Poule Scudetto where they were facing the other top four teams in the standings another two times.
Now, their season finale on May 10 at the Allianz Stadium will also be a Scudetto party.
Those will never get old. Never, ever, ever.
Juventus Women claiming the Scudetto in the Poule Scudetto comes a day after it was announced that Serie A Femminile will change the format of the schedule come next season. The schedule having two phases will go away as a result of the size of the league going from 10 to 12 teams, with the amount of games expanding to 22.
On top of the Coppa Italia, there will a new competition added to the schedule — one that still doesn’t have a name but is officially a thing — that will include just the 12 top flight teams. They will be broken into three four-team groups, with the three group winners and the best second-place finisher advancing to the four-team knockout phase. It will take place before the 2025-26 season officially kicks off in the fall.
