Italy Beats Belgium 1-0 in Women’s Euro 2025: Caruso Strike Decides Sion Clash

Day 2 of the Women’s European Championship promises to be an epic one between two very promising sides. For Italy, this is their 13th appearance at the European Championships. Their best ever finish was runners-up twice in 1993 and 1997. Italian manager Andrea Soncin talks about how important it is for Italy to be focused on their first game against Belgium.

“We are highly concentrated on our path. We absolutely respect Belgium and the team we will tackle. We’ve analyzed Belgium, we know very well different players playing in Italian tournaments and other top European tournaments… We are very much concentrated on our plans.”, stated Soncin at the pre-match press conference.

For Belgium, they feel like they are up for the challenge to take on Italy. Belgium manager Elísabet Gunnarsdóttir discussed the challenge of playing Italy in the first match of the Euros.

“Yeah, they are a very disciplined team, you can see the defense shape is very good, and you can see that they are drilled in a way that they found what they want and they are comfortable with it and they’ve been successful with it so yeah its a really good team we’re gonna play against tomorrow.”, declared Gunnarsdóttir at the pre-match press conference. This is Belgium’s third ever appearance at the EUROs and their best ever finish was a quarterfinal appearance in 2022.

The match begins at a wonderful venue, the Stade Tourbillon in Sion. A beautiful sunny afternoon for football. Italy started the game off very well and kept Belgium at bay. Italy took the first advantage at the 44th minute. Italy’s Lucia Di Guglielmo makes a little run and crosses it to Arianna Caruso. Caruso shoots an absolute rocket past Belgium’s Lisa Lichtfus for the 1-0 lead and gives the Italians some breathing room heading into halftime.

The second half was more of the same. Belgium won the possession battle, but Italy had more chances to score more goals. Swiss referee Désirée Grundbacher blew her whistle, and Italy were victorious in Sion. Belgium will now have a mountain to climb if they want to advance to the knockout stages. Italy will be delighted about getting the 3 points in the first match and will now look towards their next challenge against Portugal on Monday, July 7th at the Stade de Genève. Belgium will now have to face the defending World Cup champions, Spain, at the Stockhorn Arena on Monday, July 7th.