Juventus 2 - 1 Verona
Trezeguet 37' (J), Zidane 74' (J), Adailton 88' (V)
Sunday 26 Nov 2000, kick-off 4:00PM CET
The French contingent came up trumps for Carlo Ancelotti, as he opted to give Alessandro Del Piero a rest and start with David Trezeguet instead. The move paid dividends as it was the Frenchman who broke the deadlock late in the first half with a headed goal from a ball floated in by Antonio Conte who had taken up a position wide on the right. Juve�s opener was followed in the second half by one of Zinedine Zidane�s trade-mark free-kicks, with 15 minutes to go in the game.
But it was by no means all Juve, as Verona never gave up even after going two behind at the Delle Alpi. Indeed Juve must count themselves lucky not to have thrown away all their good work in the final seconds of the game.
The Bianconeri went in at the break one goal up, but it could have been more had David Trezeguet followed up his 37th minute goal with another six later minutes, after some good foot work in the box by Filippo Inzaghi created a gilt-edged chance for the Frenchman.
By that stage the Bianconeri had already made seven other goalscoring chances for themselves and the manager must have started to wonder if his side were going to get caught by the classic sucker punch. Trezeguet put an end to that fear.
But Verona who played, as expected, on the break, had a few chances of their own with Adrian Mutu causing problems for the home side�s defence on more than one occasion.
In the second half the visitors gave up their defensive attitude and came out all guns firing, with both Massimo Oddo and Mutu going close. But it didn�t take long for Juve to get the measure of Verona�s new offensive strategy and in the end it was Zinedine Zidane that looked to have made the result safe for the home team, with a stunning 25-yard strike which curled in at the far post, leaving Fabrizio Ferron helpless.
Then, in the 43rd minute, after Ciro Ferrara had somehow missed a point blank header that would have all but buried Attilio Perotti�s side, Martins Adailton sprung onto a ball that had come off Paolo Montero and brought the visitors back to within one goal of the Bianconeri.
2-1 is how it finished, though not before the home team went perilously close to dropping two points in the final minute of injury time when Mark Iuliano deflected a shot from Martino Melis over the crossbar with Edwin Van der Sar beaten.
Yellow Cards:
Juventus - Zidane, Tacchinardi
Verona - Colucci G., Gilardino
Juventus (3-4-1-2): Van der Sar; Birindelli, Iuliano (73� Ferrara), Montero; Conte, Tacchinardi, Davids (81� O�Neill), Pessotto; Zidane; Inzaghi (63� Zambrotta), Trezeguet
Subs - Rampulla, Ferrara, Paramatti, O�Neill, Zambrotta, Kovacevic, Del Piero
Verona (4-4-2):Ferron; Oddo, Laursen, Apolloni, Cvitanovic; Camoranesi (61� Melis), Italiano, Mazzola, G. Colucci; Mutu (69� Adailton), Gilardino (81� Cossato)
Subs - Doardo, Gonnella, Adailton, Cassetti, Salvetti, Cossato Melis
Referee: Nucini (Bergamo)
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