Juventus Three Points Clear At The Top
TURIN, Italy, Sept 15 (AFP)
A penalty by Chile's Marcelo Salas earned Juventus a 3-2 victory over promoted Chievo at the Delle Alpi stadium here on Saturday to motor three points clear in the Italian championship.
Juventus are thereby uncatchable as table toppers this weekend with eight fixtures of Sunday still to come.
Juventus, who beat Venezia 4-0 and Atalanta 2-0 in previous fixtures, kept up their 100 percent record though Marcello Lippi's team found it tough early in the first half.
Chievo opened the scoring thanks to Massimo Marazzina in the ninth minute after profiting from a goalkeeping error by Gianluigi Buffon. They doubled the score with another goal by Marazzina on 19 minutes with a near-post header.
A superb right-footed volley by Alessio Tacchinardi two minutes later followed by a headed goal from Croatia's Igor Tudor after an Alessandro Del Piero corner three minutes before the break brought the home side level.
Juventus dominated the second half and managed to transform their superiority into the winning goal. Fabio Moro handled in the area and, despite protests by Chievo players, Salas stepped up to fire home the spot kick in the 83rd minute.
Sunday's major fixtures include Inter Milan versus Venezia, Udinese against AC Milan, plus games involving the Roman clubs - Lazio against Torino and Piacenza versus AS Roma.
