Juve Keep In Touch As Chievo Dream Starts To Die
VERONA, Italy (Reuters) - Juventus have made it five straight wins in Serie A with a crucial 3-1 victory over the season's surprise package Chievo Verona.
The win keeps Juventus in third place and within three points of leaders AS Roma but leaves Chievo trailing the reigning champions by ten points.
Although Luigi Del Neri's side showed plenty of battling spirit, their limitations were exposed by Juve and with just four points from their last five games talk of a title win in their first season in the top flight now seems rather fanciful.
Juventus went ahead in the 18th minute when David Trezeguet nodded an Alessandro Del Piero corner back across the face of the goal and veteran defender Ciro Ferrara headed home from close range.
Chievo's Brazilian winger Eriberto then forced a good save out of Juve goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and could only fire wide minutes later after a neat exchange with Bernardo Corradi.
Three minutes after the restart Juve doubled their advantage in fortunate fashion when a Del Piero effort from a Pavel Nedved cross went in off the knee of Chievo defender Fabio Moro.
Juve had a chance to kill the game when awarded a penalty after Chievo keeper Cristiano Lupatelli was judged to have brought down Del Piero inside the area.
Chievo protested at the decision and television replays showed no foul as Lupatelli's hand had pushed the ball away from the Italy international.
JUSTICE
Justice was done when Lupatelli saved Del Piero's weak effort and the emotions raised by the decision appeared to bring Chievo, and the near-capacity 34,000 crowd to life.
Two minutes later they were back in the game when their influential midfielder Eugenio Corini sent Massimo Marazzina free on the right and the Chievo striker drove a low, diagonal shot past Buffon.
Chievo pushed forward in search of an equaliser but just as it seemed the game was heading for a passionate finale, Del Piero was given a second chance from the penalty spot and this time made no mistake.
Moro was ruled to have handled a Nedved cross and Del Piero blasted the spot kick well out of the reach of Lupatelli.
Chievo now face Lazio in a rearranged game on Wednesday, badly needing to win if they are to restore momentum to their season and maintain their challenge to the traditional giants.
