Italy started their 2025 UEFA Women's European Championship with a narrow 1-0 win over Belgium, ending a series of three consecutive H2H defeats.
With this their third consecutive appearance at the competition, Belgium is starting to improve at the highest level and even this year to beat reigning champion England in the UEFA Nations League.
After a minute of silence after the tragic passage of Liverpool Vooruit Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva, they also started positively here and came in different dangerous positions, albeit without causing their opponents too many problems.
The first shot on the goal came halfway through the first half from Italy when Arianna Caruso forced a salvation from Lisa Lichtfus, while Marian Toloba shot closely from the post on the other side.
Only in the last five minutes before the break did things start to warm up. Tessa Wullaert, found in the box, hammered along the post and the attempt by Jill Janssens rose from a distance shortly afterwards over the bar.
The Belgians would come to Rue that Wullaert Miss, in particular, when Caruso broke the impasse on the edge of the rest with a well -affected effort from just in the box, so that light fus left no chance between the sticks.
After the restart, Belgium tried to find a reaction, in which Wullaert went directly to Italian goalkeeper Laura Giuliani around the hour.
Shortly thereafter, the Azzurre had a fantastic opportunity to double their advantage, but Lichtfus did well to go down and to keep Cristiani Girelli's smart backheel out before Caruso led a well -hit strike past the woodwork.
Replace Michaela Cambiaghi later an attempt just past the post, while Italy seemed to give itself extra breathing space. In the end, however, Caruso's strike was all that Italy was needed to secure the three points.
After being eliminated in the group stage of the past two euros, Italy will now be sure that they can reach the knockouts after just a second opening victory in the competition in their last six performances.
Belgium is now against it, especially with the current FIFA World Cup champions Spain in the next place -a country where they recently lost 5-0.