The Azzurre have been improving since Andrea Soncin took over but they have been drawn in a tough group
This article is part of the Guardian’s Euro 2025 Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 16 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from two teams each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 2 July.
“The feeling is the same as in 2019,” says Cristiana Girelli, one of the main protagonists of the World Cup that changed the history of Italy’s women’s national team. That was the year Italy topped their group ahead of Australia and reached the quarter-finals.
Then there were the debacles of the 2022 Euros and the following year’s World Cup – but things are looking up again. The arrival of Andrea Soncin in September 2023 has led to a slow and perhaps surprising rebirth of the team. There has not been a revolution but he has gradually transformed the team’s look with a modest generational change that has brought new faces to the squad while also re-evaluating the old guard.
The Soncin era began with a Nations League campaign in which Italy finished second behind Spain but recorded a historic 3-2 triumph against the world champions, leading to some of the optimism currently surrounding the squad. That sense of positivity built further during the Euro qualifying campaign where Italy finished top of their group ahead of the Netherlands.
