Cristiana Girelli becomes first-ever Juventus Women player to score 100 goals

Even before Cristiana Girelli arrived at Juventus, she was one of the best strikers Italy had to offer. Her résumé spoke for itself, and the chance to play for the club in which her idol growing up, Alessandro Del Piero, played for was something she just couldn’t pass up.

On Saturday afternoon, Girelli etched her name into Juventus Women lore.

With the fourth and final goal in Juventus Women’s 4-0 landslide victory over Fiorentina in Florence, Girelli became the first ever Bianconere player to score 100 goals for the club. It was not the most difficult of goals — that was left for the player who set the whole thing up — but it was yet another accomplishment for a player in Girelli who has been the leader of the Juve line ever since she signed from Brescia 4 ¹⁄₂ years ago.

Behold, the milestone goal (and the beautiful assist to put it on a plate for Girelli, in all of its glory ...

Oh, that assist. Julia Grosso, you didn’t have to do that to your marker. We’re glad that you did, but that was just filthy and will be the kind of move I’ll be watching about 50 more times before the day is over.

The goal, a simple header over the defender marking her at the back post, was Girelli’s 12th of the 2022-23 Serie A Femminile season, placing her second in the league behind Inter’s Tabitha Chawinga. In all competitions, Girelli has 15 goals in 21 games (20 starts), the kind of bounceback season for a 32-year-old striker that you can only hope for after she managed just seven goals in league play last year.

The fact that Girelli has taken less than five seasons to get to this milestone just speaks to how good she has been since joining Juve in the summer of 2018. She’s hit double-digit goal totals in all competitions each of her five years with Juventus. She’s won the scoring title in 2019-20 and 2020-21 and obviously has a chance to make it three in five years this season.

Fact is, Saturday’s goal was just the memorable moment for what has been a fantastic run at Juventus Women that still very much has some chapters to be written. Who knows if there’s another 100 goals on the way before her time with the Bianconere is over, but you know for a fact that she’s going to be trying her damnedest to make it happen.