Banyana Banyana co-captain Refiloe Jane was on the scoresheet for her side Sassuolo in the Italian Serie A Femminile on Saturday (18 March 2023).
The Soweto-born midfielder opened the scoring in the sixth minute, before Daniella Sabatino and Clelland increased the advantage with a goal each for a 3-0 win over Sampdoria.
This was Jane’s second goal for the Neroverdi in 19 matches since joining from AC Milan in August last year.
She has only been replaced four times.
The victory sees Sassuolo jump into sixth place with 20 points – and sixth on the table of the ten-team league.
After 19 games, they have lost nine, won and drawn five each.
With the regular season already done and dusted, the league is in play-off season – and this is how it works: (source: total-Italianfootball.com)
- Serie A Femminile was reduced from 12 teams to 10 for the 2022/23 season – this was just the first and the most obvious change at first glance. It was done to not only increase the level of competitiveness in the top tier, but also to accommodate for the second phase of the season
- Prior to the 2022/23 campaign, a Serie A Femminile season saw each of the teams face one another twice – once at home and once away. That remains the procedure for the regular season – meaning 18 matchdays – but then comes the biggest, and most exciting change:
- Once each of the 10 Serie A Femminile sides have met at home and away, the league splits into two mini-leagues, each composed of five teams – named the scudetto pool (the top five) and the survival pool (the bottom five)
- From there, there are two more rounds of fixtures – eight more matchdays – with top-half sides facing one another and bottom-half sides playing each other
- Two new mini-leagues set to started this month
- As there are five teams in each half of the table, one side in each of the so-called pools will have a rest week on any given matchday
- Crucially, teams start the second phase of the season on the points tallies they have accumulated from the regular season, and head-to-head records carry over as well, should they become needed in the event of a tiebreak
- As things stand, there are 1.5 relegation places in Serie A Femminile – the bottom-placed side at the end of the second phase of the season will be relegated to Serie B Femminile, while second-from-bottom will face a play-off with a Serie B side for the right to play in the top flight in 2023/24
- The 2022/23 season is the first official campaign of full professionalism for Serie A Femminile.
By Matlhomola Morake
