Juventus Women had everything in their favor entering the second leg of their Women’s Champions League qualifying matchup on Wednesday night. They were at home (kinda). They had a squad that’s starting to get healthy again. They had already shown that they could do some good things against their opponent, Danish champions HB Køge, during the first leg last week.

There was just one thing: Because of the 1-1 aggregate scoreline after last Tuesday’s trip to Denmark, the door was very much open for some kind of silliness to potential derail Juventus’ hopes of making the UWCL group stage for the second straight season. It’s a good thing that Juve both slammed that door shut and then put about 14 deadbolts on it to prevent anything crazy from happening.

It’s back to the Women’s Champions League group stage for Joe Montemurro and the Bianconere thanks to goals from Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir and Sofia Cantore and an absolutely convincing performance in 2-0 win (3-1 on aggregate) over Køge in Alessandria. The difference this time compared to 12 months ago was that making the group stage is now a major objective rather than just the fell-good story it was the first time around.

Montemurro’s side now has the bar raised following their quarterfinal run last season that making the group stage is where things start come this year. And guess what? They can now check this objective off the list. This is what Juventus’ continued growth looks like, folks. Has it been a great start to the season? No, of course not.

Watching Juve drop points domestically and draw three of their last four games in all competitions is something this team hasn’t done much at all in its existence, let alone since Montemurro took over at the start of last season.