Lazio, Parma Eye Juventus' Italian Title
Copyright � 1998 Nando.net
Copyright � 1998 Reuters
ROME (Sep 9, 1998 - 22:02 EDT) - Thoroughbreds Juventus starts the Italian soccer season as champions but the clubs eyeing their title are Lazio and Parma -- nouveau riche upstarts financed by the stock market, squashed tomatoes and milk.
Ten years ago, Lazio vs. Parma was a second division fixture. Five years before that, Parma was in Serie C. Parma has never won a league title while Lazio have never won a European trophy.
But as the 1998-98 season gets underway the two sides are perfectly placed to wrestle the "scudetto" from Juventus' grasp.
Lazio in particular has built an awesome side over the summer, polishing off their pre-season shopping by spending $28 million on Italy's World Cup hero Christian Vieri.
Vieri teams up with Chile's Marcelo Salas, Croatia's Alen Boksic and Italian Roberto Mancini in an unrivalled attack.
Behind them sit Spain's Ivan de la Pena and Yugoslav midfielder Dejan Stankovic while Portugal's Fernando Couto, Italy's Alessandro Nesta and Yugoslavia's Sinisa Mihajlovic anchor the defence.
Lazio gave Juventus a glimpse of their new-found strength when they beat them 2-1 in the Italian Supercup last month and, with sanguine Swedish coach Sven Goran Eriksson still at the helm, are a formidable force.
Their money comes courtesy of their bourse flotation in May and from ambitious owner Sergio Cragnotti, who has made a fortune through his food company Cirio SpA, Europe's biggest producer of processed tomatoes.
Parma's cash comes from Parmalat, the world's biggest dairy producer and owner of football clubs across the globe.
It has enabled the side from rural central-northern Italy to bring Argentine midfielder Juan Veron to the Tardini stadium to team up with two of the world's best defenders in France's Lilian Thuram and Italy's Fabio Cannavaro.
Colombian striker Faustino Asprilla joins pacey Enrico Chiesa in attack and Parma's new coach Alberto Malesani, with money to spare, could yet dive back into the transfer market to bolster his forward line.
In contrast, the traditional big guns of Italian soccer have had a relatively quiet summer.
Juventus are relying almost entirely on their 1998 championship winning side while Inter Milan have turned away from the foreign transfer market to buy Italian -- Roberto Baggio and youthful forwards Nicola Ventola and Andrea Pirlo.
Rather than looking to new players, both Juve and Inter must revive the fortunes of last season's heroes.
Juve striker Alessandro Del Piero had a dire World Cup and a difficult summer both on and off the pitch while Ronaldo has to prove that, at the age of 21, he is not burnt out.
AC Milan scooped up last season's top scorer in Serie A Oliver Bierhoff along with coach Alberto Zaccheroni, the German striker's manager at Udinese last season.
Once again Milan have a wonderfully talented squad but, as the past two seasons have shown, that is not always enough.
Other teams gunning for trophies will be Fiorentina, under the guidance of recently returned coach Giovanni Trappatoni, Sampdoria, who pulled off a major coup in attracting Argentina's Ariel Ortega to Genoa, and AS Roma, who are banking on Italian stars Luigi Di Biagio, Eusebio Di Francesco and Francesco Totti.
The marketing and merchandising boom which has engulfed English soccer during the 1990s is creeping into the Italian championship, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
This will be the first Serie A championship to carry a sponser's name following a deal between the Football League and mobile phone operator Telecom Italia Mobile.
AS Roma have been taking tips in marketing from Manchester United. Juventus have been doing the same with Crystal Palace.
Lazio's phenomenal spending has not gone unnoticed and by the end of the 1998-99 season they may not be the only Italian soccer club on the bourse.
But despite the big signings and grand plans it would be wrong to assume that Italian soccer has never had it so good.
With the English premier league awash with money and foreign stars, Serie A's long held claim to be the world's most prestigious league is looking decidedly shaky.
A doping scandal rocked Italian sport over the summer and could yet return to haunt the title race once the season starts.
And Italy's poor record at the World Cup on top of their first round exit from Euro 96 has filled Italians with a sense of unease over the state of their national side.
Critics say a league which has indulged in overseas spending on an unprecedented scale over the last two decades has sucked the life-blood from its home grown players, who struggle to hold down first team places at the big foreign-dominated clubs.
None of this appears to be taxing Lazio or Parma as they prepare for what could be the most momentous season of their respective histories.
As fate would have it, the two sides are due to face each other on the final day of the season.
