Roma Women closed their opening group match in the Coppa Italia with a 2-0 win against Ternana at home on Friday evening. The result puts the visitors ahead in the standings after the first round of fixtures. A. Pilgrim was the decisive figure, netting twice to end a barren spell for herself.
And here's the thing about the opening goal — it came at the fourteen-minute mark when Pilgrim took advantage of space in behind. Ternana never really got out of second gear after that, but they couldn't find an answer. By then the momentum had shifted decisively towards the away side.
Before the break, Pilgrim added a second at the fifty-minute mark, though the clock showed forty-five. She collected a yellow card at thirty-one minutes, a cautions that might have made the coaching staff nervous. Hornemann went off at the seventeenth minute after picking up her own booking at forty-three.
The substitutions started coming thick and fast from the fifty-third minute. Ternana brought on M. Antoine, then L. Peruzzo and C. Ciccotti in quick succession, trying to change the dynamic. Roma responded at sixty-one with both Pilgrim and M. Doms leaving the pitch, the scorer herself being withdrawn as the game settled.
Looking back at recent results, this follows a pattern. Roma beat Ternana 2-0 in May, and the same scoreline held up here in the cup. The visitors have been solid on the road — wins against Juventus and Genoa on their last outing. Ternana, meanwhile, have struggled for consistency, losing to Lazio and Parma in their previous five.
The goal difference sits at two for Roma after one game, while Ternana will review what went wrong. It wasn't a spectacle, but it was efficient. The hosts had nothing to do all evening until the final whistle, and even then the result was never really in doubt.