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Major tournaments are a great stage for players to introduce themselves to the wider world, with youngsters so often announcing themselves as stars of the future and ones to watch with performances under the highest of pressure. But one of the most heart-warming features of the 2025 European Championship has been the regularity with which long-standing icons of different nations have had their moments in the spotlight.
Lucy Bronze is a great example. The full-back enjoyed a breakout tournament when England reached the last four of the 2015 Women’s World Cup and has been a key player in the run of six successive major tournament semi-finals that started, so it was fitting that she was such an inspiring figure in the remarkable comeback against Sweden in last week’s quarter-finals, aged 33.
Jess Fishlock, meanwhile, is the greatest women’s footballer Wales have ever produced, as well as being one of the best players in the history of the NWSL, the U.S. top-flight, but it long looked like she’d never play in a major international tournament. Thus after helping to finally drag Wales over the line in qualifying, having contemplated retirement in an emotional and often heart-breaking journey to that point, it was amazing to see her score the Dragons’ first-ever goal on this stage – and provide a great assist as they bowed out against England.
But the best story of this kind during Euro 2025 has come in the form of Cristiana Girelli. Twelve years on from her senior international debut, the striker looks to be almost better than ever at 35 years old, with her goals having helped Italy put back-to-back group-stage exits at major tournaments behind them during an incredible run to the semi-finals, where they will take on the defending champions, England.
Women’s Euro 2025 tickets were made available through official UEFA channels atu0026nbsp;womenseuro.com and ticketcorner.ch and demand has been high with over 500,000 sold. Close collaboration with each national association following the final tournament draw, helped process the sale of tickets to fans of the participating teams.
Girelli is a long-standing icon of the Italian women’s game. Debuting back in 2005 for Bardolino Verona, aged 15, she would go on to represent Brescia and then Juventus, for whom she has scored 137 goals in just 206 appearances. She has 10 Serie A titles to her name, as part of 30 major honours, and was inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame in 2022 alongside Gianfranco Zola, Zinedine Zidane and Jose Mourinho.
Yet, perhaps one of her greatest achievements in a long and storied career is that, aged 35, she has just had one of her very best seasons. Girelli won the Serie A Golden Boot this year with her fifth-best scoring campaign in the league ever, one which helped propel Juventus back to the top of the domestic game after back-to-back titles for Roma.
“I don’t feel my age,” she told Sky Sport Italia before Euro 2025, with her performances for Italy similarly exciting. Girelli scored three goals in four appearances in the Nations League at the start of this year, averaging a successful strike every 64 minutes. That form was a feature of a serious upturn in results for the Azzurre under head coach Andrea Soncin, and something that created real optimism around the national team before this tournament.
But that optimism was cautious because, as Girelli knows well, things haven’t gone to plan for Italy in recent years. At the 2019 Women’s World Cup, she was one of the main faces of a team that reached the quarter-finals of that tournament for the first time since 1991, scoring a hat-trick against Jamaica in the group stages.
It was a run which captured the attention at home. ‘An Italy to love: Calcio discovers women’ was the headline in La Gazzetta dello Sport as television records were broken and, upon returning home, players received incredible receptions from those whose hearts they had won. “The media attention we’re getting is invaluable for the growth of women’s football in Italy,” Girelli said at the time. “We are here trying to win, but we are also here to send a strong message to society back home, that there is still so much to do.”
A lot of that work has been done in the six years since. Serie A has become a professional women’s league and has grown incredibly, now standing out as one of the best divisions in Europe. However, it coincided with surprising underperformance from the national team.
At Euro 2022, many expected Italy to back up the success of that World Cup and progress from a group that featured France, Belgium and Iceland. They didn’t. Then-head coach Milena Bertolini was keen to explain the disappointment, noting that it would take four or five years to “reap the benefits” of the professional era that was coming. “You can’t think you can make up a 20-year gap in seven years,” she added. All that she said was fair enough, though there were questions about tactics, selection and performances that it couldn’t quite excuse.
At the 2023 World Cup, there was similar disappointment, as Italy again crashed at the first hurdle. A surprise 3-2 loss to South Africa in their final group-stage game saw their opponents progress at their expense and would result in Bertolini leaving her post. Having been at the helm during such an important point in the history of the Italian women’s game, at that 2019 World Cup, it was a sad way for her to depart, but her work remains significant.
“History is written by what has been done before,” Soncin, her successor, said last week. “We must give credit to those who were there in previous years, who, even without these possibilities, have given a boost to the movement. We are reaping the fruits.”
A lot about this Italy team has changed during that time, with just eight players left from the squad that re-established the Azzurre on the women’s football map in 2019, but it feels fitting that Girelli, now the captain, is still leading this team from the front. Scorer of the two goals that defeated Norway in the quarter-finals, her second coming in the 90th minute, the veteran is only further cementing her iconic status with her performances in Switzerland.
Cecilia Salvai described her as “an unmatched striker”, while Lucia Di Guglielmo cited her as a long-time “reference point” for her. “I remember a time during our preparations for the Euros when we were all tired and out on our feet at the end of a training session, but she was doing reps and running around more,” the defender explained. “I thought, ‘Well, this is what makes the difference’. It’s in your head, not your legs.” Elena Linari agreed, adding: “She showed during this season that it’s not the age which makes the difference, but the mentality.”
“Throughout her career, she’s received less recognition than she truly deserves, both for her technical ability and her character,” Soncin said after Girelli’s match-winning brace against Norway. “There are very few like her in the box.”
Of course, Italy’s success at the Euros is not just down to Girelli – something she would be the first to point out. There have been so many strong performers for the Azzurre in Switzerland, all of whom have benefited from the growth and improvements back home in Serie A, the league which all but two of those in Soncin’s squad play in. They’ve also grown in experience over the last few years on the international stage and came into this tournament desperate to put things right after back-to-back failures, with progression to the quarter-finals seeming to free them up a little, mentally, after some nervousness through the first three games.
It’s also important to point out the impact of Soncin, whose rapport with his players appears to be truly special. “He gave us so much confidence,” Sofia Cantore explained in an interview with Gazzetta before the tournament. “He told us from day one that we could compete with anyone and, on a tactical level, he takes care of every detail. We enter the field always knowing exactly what we have to do.”
A journeyman striker in his playing days, Soncin came into the job with no experience in the women’s game and yet he is excelling. Girelli has credited him for the humility with which he entered “an environment he wasn’t familiar with”, while Elisabetta Oliviero described his leadership as “flawless”.
“He is a dreamer,” goalkeeper Laura Giuliani said. “Someone who brings calm and reassurance but is also very focused on the details. That trust is built off the pitch, and we then bring it onto the pitch as well. For me, it’s essential to have someone who supports you both on and off the pitch.”
Italy will be underdogs on Tuesday, as they face defending champions England in the semi-finals. The Azzurre haven’t been this far in a European Championship since 1997, with experience in the situation certainly on their opponents’ side. The Lionesses have the greater pedigree, too, having also reached the 2023 Women’s World Cup final.
But there are a lot of reasons for Italy to believe that their dream summer can continue. Soncin has shown great tactical nous throughout the Euros to this point, alternating between formations to make his side hard to prepare for, and the Azzurre have a fantastic record when going up against Europe’s elite in recent times, with wins over Spain, the Netherlands and Germany under their belts during Soncin’s time.
There is reason to believe Girelli can make her mark in particular, too. England’s defence has been poor during this tournament, with issues at centre-back and left-back plaguing their performances, something that could be intensified if Leah Williamson isn’t fit to feature on Tuesday after an ankle injury forced her off against Sweden.
Girelli, meanwhile, is on fire and looking better than ever, with there even more focus in the twilight of her career on nutrition, rest and training, and she is set to lead out a team that has a “magical” feeling around them again.
“To tell the truth, I already felt something special since we arrived in Switzerland, since the coach took over the technical leadership of the team,” Girelli said after reaching the semi-finals, almost in tears as she spoke. “It’s a dream come true.”
It’s a dream that isn’t over yet, either.
