Team USA Faces Challenge from Italy in World Cup Showdown
BERLIN — For the first time in a long time, the juggernaut blinked.
Team USA, winners of four straight FIBA Women’s World Cup titles and unbeaten in the competition since 2006, walked into Berlin Arena on Sunday expecting resistance from Italy. What they got was a full-on street fight.
The Americans, who had sliced China apart 94-61 two days earlier behind a 14-point, 11-assist double-double from Caitlin Clark, suddenly looked human. The three-pointers that rained against China vanished. The free-flowing offense jammed. The gold-medal favorites found themselves in a grind.
And Italy loved every second of it.
A defensive brawl from the opening tip
Chelsea Gray opened the scoring with a jumper after Team USA won the tip, a familiar script for a program used to dictating terms. But this was no early knockout.
Italy met them chest-to-chest from the first possession. Passing lanes shrank. Drives turned into collisions. At the halfway point of the first quarter, both teams already had two steals. The scoreboard read 11-6 to the U.S., but the tone was set: nothing easy.
Team USA’s depth still flashed early. Nine different Americans scored in the opening quarter, the “young and turnt” group rolling off the bench and onto the stat sheet. Paige Bueckers led all scorers with four points in the first 10 minutes as the U.S. built an 18-8 lead.
Italy, though, refused to fold. They shot just 21% in the first quarter and coughed up eight turnovers — Jasmine Keys’ four points the lone bright spot — yet they stayed within sight, their defense stubborn, their energy constant.
This wasn’t going to be a showcase. It was going to be a test.
Angel Reese sets a tone at the rim
If the U.S. couldn’t hit from outside, they could at least send a message inside.
Angel Reese did that immediately. In under three minutes on the floor, she racked up a steal and two blocks, swatting away Italian attempts and snarling up the paint. By halftime, she led the Americans with six points, two blocks, a steal and the kind of presence that doesn’t show up fully in the box score.
Team USA turned that defensive edge into chaos for Italy early in the second quarter. At the 6:45 mark, the Americans had already piled up six steals and four blocks, swarming every touch, jumping passing lanes, and threatening to blow the game open.
They pushed the lead to 19-8 after the first and later out to double digits. The script looked familiar again. The world champions were leaning on their depth, their length, their pedigree.
Then the game flipped.
Zandalasini drags Italy back
The pressure finally told — just not on Italy.
As the second quarter wore on, Andrea Capobianco’s team found its nerve. They packed the paint and dared the U.S. to shoot. The Americans couldn’t answer. The same team that had buried 12 threes against China went ice-cold: by late in the half, they had not made a single three-pointer.
America’s field-goal percentage slipped to 33%. “Oof” felt about right.
On the other end, Cecilia Zandalasini went to work. The Italian star, who plays under Team USA assistant Natalie Nakase with the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries, started to carve out pockets of space. Jumpers, drives, smart cuts — she found them all. At the 4:15 mark of the second quarter, Italy was on a 14-3 run, slicing what had been a 10-point U.S. cushion down to 26-20.
Zandalasini climbed to nine points, leading all scorers and dragging Italy back into the game almost single-handedly. The only cloud over her brilliance: foul trouble. She picked up a third foul before the break, forcing Italy into a delicate balancing act with their leading scorer.
Still, Italy refused to back down. They outscored the U.S. 16-? in the second quarter (16 points total in the frame) and slashed the deficit to six by halftime, 30-24. The Americans shot 32% from the floor, Italy 31%. Every cut, every rebound, every loose ball felt contested.
Kara Lawson’s verdict: physical, but sloppy
As the teams headed to the locker rooms, USA head coach Kara Lawson didn’t sugarcoat what she was seeing.
“I think we're playing physically; we're just making too many errors. We're making too many mistakes,” Lawson said at halftime. “Italy's playing with great force. We knew they would. It's forced us into a lot of unforced errors.”
The numbers backed her up. The U.S. defense had been disruptive, but the offense looked rushed, impatient, and strangely tentative from the perimeter. Italy’s compact, disciplined shell in the paint turned drives into traffic jams and jumpers into a necessity.
This was exactly the kind of game Lawson had warned about when she spoke before the tournament about building chemistry on the fly. With A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum ruled out days before the World Cup for health reasons, Team USA had turned to youth — Washington Mystics pair Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen stepping in — and leaned heavily on emerging stars like Clark, Bueckers and Reese.
Against China, the new-look roster had danced. Against Italy, it had to grind.
Italy seizes the lead
The third quarter brought something rarely seen in this competition: genuine U.S. vulnerability.
At the 7:31 mark, Napheesa Collier picked up her third foul, forcing Lawson to go to Rhyne Howard off the bench earlier than planned. Collier’s foul trouble chipped away at the Americans’ interior stability and gave Italy even more courage to attack.
Moments later, the scoreboard delivered a jolt.
With 5:32 left in the third, Italy led 33-32. For a team that had only been ahead for 42 seconds all afternoon, it was a seismic moment. The United States, the undefeated World Cup machine, had missed seven straight field goals. They were 0-for-9 from beyond the arc. Their offense, usually a blur of movement and options, looked static.
Italy’s defensive pressure bit into every catch. They cut off the paint, bodied up cutters, and turned the lane into a crowd. The Americans, so used to dictating tempo, suddenly chased the game.
Team USA was not just in a scrap. It was in trouble.
A heavyweight still expected to answer
Context matters. This is still the program that has not lost a World Cup game since 2006. This is still a roster fronted by Breanna Stewart, Chelsea Gray and Collier, supported by a wave of talent headlined by Clark, Bueckers and Reese. This is still the only team entering the tournament with minus-odds to win it all, ahead of fellow contenders France, Belgium, Australia and Spain.
But Italy, backed by Zandalasini’s shot-making and a snarling, connected defense, showed exactly what the rest of the field needed to see: the Americans can be pushed, rattled, dragged into uncomfortable places.
For Lawson, who has been clear that there’s “no time to be worried about who’s not here,” this is the reality of a World Cup played with a new core and sky-high expectations. The group stage in Berlin — with Italy and Czechia joining China in Group D — was never just about results. It was about identity, chemistry, and how this team responds when someone finally swings back.
On Sunday, Italy landed a few clean shots. The question now is how long the rest of the world believes the giant can be made to wobble.
