Roma Beats Juventus in Battle of Bitter Rivals
Copyright � 1998 Nando.net
Copyright � 1998 Reuters
ROME (Nov 15, 1998 - 13:27 EST) -- Brazilian Paolo Sergio and France's Vincent Candela both scored on Sunday as AS Roma backed up its recent war of words with Juventus by beating the Italian champion 2-0 at the Olympic Stadium.
Serie A leader Fiorentina, meanwhile, went down 4-2 at surprising Piacenza, its third successive road defeat.
The result left Roma in second place just a point behind Fiorentina and ahead of Juventus on goal difference.
AC Milan can draw level with Roma and Juventus on 17 points if it wins later.
Roma took the spoils on the field, but its festering off-pitch feud with Juventus continued afterwards.
Speaking just minutes after Juve's second defeat of the season, general manager Roberto Bettega reacted angrily to Roma manager Zdenek Zeman's pre-match claim that Juventus had lost its old style and panache.
"Zeman cannot speak about the Juventus style," said Bettega, "He has never been a part of our world."
It was the latest exchange in a feud that started last season with a controversial Juve victory and continued into the summer with Zeman's widely-published allegations that the champions might have used performance enhancing substances.
The claims led to a full-scale legal inquiry into Juventus's physical training methods.
In truth, Sunday's was a hollow victory for Zeman: Juventus Coach Marcello Lippi was serving a suspension and sat out the match in the stands while Alessandro Del Piero, one of the players Zeman had targeted, was absent injured.
On the pitch, Juventus reacted impressively to the loss of Del Piero and might have taken the lead in the third minute when Edgar Davids burst through the center of the Roma defense only to shoot weakly into the arms of Antonio Chimenti.
On the half-hour, Angelo Peruzzi was forced to tip a 20-meter drive from Marco Delvecchio over the bar, but there was little he could do in the 44th minute about Sergio's opener.
Ciro Ferrara fouled Francesco Totti 25 meters from goal, and the Italy international quickly chipped Juve's defensive wall to find the unmarked Sergio, who lobbed the ball over Peruzzi.
After the break, Juventus sent on Didier Deschamps and ex-Roma player Daniel Fonseca -- both far from full fitness -- but lost Paolo Montero, sent-off for elbowing Sergio.
Fonseca was desperately unlucky in the 77th minute when his freekick beat Chimenti, but not the post.
Candela condemned Juve to its first defeat at Roma since 1995 with a solo effort in the 87th, dribbling past Alessandro Birindelli and beating Peruzzi at his near post.
Coach Giovanni Trapattoni had no excuses after Fiorentina's third successive away defeat, blaming "below par performances" from several key players.
The visitors reacted to Piacenza's early strikes from Massimo Rastrelli and Simone Inzaghi with penalties from Rui Costa and Edmundo, but surrendered to second-half strikes from Paolo Cristallini and Giampietro Piovani.
After an indifferent start to the season, Parma moved into fourth-place courtesy of a Hernan Crespo hat-trick in its impressive 4-1 victory over Udinese at the Tardini.
Inter Milan, which had not won in four successive matches, climbed four places to sixth in the table with a 3-0 home win over Sampdoria that included two Youri Djorkaeff penalties in the opening 17 minutes.
Chilean Ivan Zamorano added a late third, but the margin of victory was marred by injury to Nicola Ventola.
Newly promoted Venezia claimed its first Serie A victory in 30 years with a 2-0 home win over Lazio at the Sant'Elena ground; The visitors had Fernando Couto sent off
Former Lazio favorite Giuseppe Signori showed glimpses of his old goal-scoring prowess with a hat-trick in Bologna's impressive 4-0 victory at Vicenza.
