AC Milan Gets Set for Juventus
Copyright � 1998 Nando.net
Copyright � 1998 Reuters
MILAN (Aug 24, 1998 - 11:31 EDT) - AC Milan faces its first real tussle of the new season on Tuesday night, when it takes on favourite sparring partners Juventus for the Berlusconi Trophy.
Milan is being revolutionsed by new coach Alberto Zaccheroni, who has switched a traditional 4-4-2 line-up to a more attacking 3-4-3, and brought in new players and new training methods.
But despite a promising start to the summer with a series of wins over foreign clubs, this is Milan's first chance to measure itself against a team of Serie A favourites.
Juventus, buffeted by the drugs accusations of AS Roma coach Zdenek Zeman, will meanwhile be looking to avenge its defeat last year.
The Turin club had the game firmly in hand until second-half goals from George Weah and Patrick Kluivert guided Milan to an unexpected victory.
The trophy, organised in memory of Luigi Berlusconi -- the father of Milan president Silvio, has nevertheless had a silver lining for the losers. These two sides have met four times in the past, and the losing team have always gone on to win the league title.
As the new boy in town, Zaccheroni's challenge on Tuesday is two-fold: he must prove that club executives made the right decision in hiring him, and convince the fans that two years of misery are at an end.
Milan's volatile supporters are anxious for a return to the good old days, when visiting teams trembled at the thought of coming to San Siro and the club had an open invitation to European football.
Zaccheroni said: "This is the first big match we've played, not only because it's against a team as renowned as Juventus, but also because it comes on the back of two bad years.
"We will be playing before the home fans for the first time and we have one over-riding duty: to win over our supporters."
As for his squad, the man who guided Udinese to third place in the table last season admitted: "We are behind in terms of preparation, because players have been arriving in dribs and drabs.
"But the team is improving, and the commitment is simply extraordinary."
Kluivert will probably start from the substitutes' bench, with the attacking trident former by Weah and Maurizio Ganz, flanking new German centre-forward Oliver Bierhoff.
Last season's top scorer in the Serie A, with 27 goals for Zaccheroni at Udinese, Bierhoff will be shouldering much of the responsibility.
However, there will no shortage of pre-match tension in the Juventus dressing-room either.
After Zeman's insinuations about his muscle development, Alessandro Del Piero needs to demonstrate that he can cope under pressure.
He snapped twice last week, storming out of a news conference when asked if he took drugs and then getting sent off in a friendly against Espanyol.
Having fired only blanks at the World Cup, and so far fired only venom since, Del Piero also has something to prove to his fans.
