Nedved Makes His Mark As Juventus Sink Perugia
TURIN, Italy, Dec 1 (AFP) - Pavel Nedved scored a long overdue first goal for Juventus Saturday evening as the Turin side defeated Perugia 2-0 to move provisionally within three points of Serie A leaders Chievo.
Czech Nedved has been much criticised since joining the Zebras from Lazio in the summer but finally ended his famine with a second-half header. Frenchman David Trezeguet later added a second for the hosts.
The game began to swing towards Juve in the 25th minute when Perugia's Manuele Blasi was sent off for a foul on Alessandro Del Piero, his second bookable offence.
But Perugia - built in the aggressive image of their coach Serse Cosmi - fought well in the first half with Juve having few chances at goal at the Stadio Delle Alpi.
Juve coach Marcello Lippi decided to switch things around at the interval bringing on Dutch midfielder Edgar Davids, surprisingly overlooked for Thursday's Champions League match with Bayer Leverkusen of Germany.
Davids immediately added a sense of urgency to the Juve midfield and seven minutes after the restart the goal came.
When a corner came in from the right Nedved timed his run perfectly to plant a firm header beyond Perugia goalkeeper Andrea Mazzantini.
From that moment on their was little doubt about the outcome and the second goal duly came.
Cristian Zenoni, who had just replaced Alessio Tacchinardi, was the provider, centring to Trezeguet who continued his prolific form by heading his seventh Serie A goal of the season and 15th in all competitions.
The rest of the Serie A programme is contested Sunday with Chievo visiting AC Milan at the San Siro. If the minnows were to slip-up in that match Inter Milan would return to the summit if they beat Atalanta.
