Fonseca Salvages 1-1 Draw for Juve at Milan
By Gideon Long
ROME, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Uruguay's Daniel Fonseca salvaged a 1-1 draw for Juventus at AC Milan on Wednesday after his team mate and compatriot Paolo Montero was sent off for a second consecutive match.
Fonseca ran on to a ball from Antonio Conte after 84 minutes, turned inside defender Roberto Ayala and slotted a right foot shot under keeper Sebastiano Rossi. His 74th Serie A goal cancelled out Demetrio Albertini's 27th minute spot kick and saved Juventus from their fourth defeat in their last six league outings.
Albertini had hammered home his penalty after Juve's Igor Tudor misjudged a sliding tackle in the box on George Weah. The big Croatian defender appeared to have made amends for his foul four minutes after the interval when he headed home a freekick from Zinedine Zidane.
But the referee disallowed what appeared to be a perfectly valid goal, possibly for shirt-tugging on Oliver Bierhoff as the freekick was taken.
The decision fired up Juve who controlled the match from then until the 60th minute when Montero was dismissed for deliberate handball -- his second bookable offence. The Uruguayan was playing his first match since he was sent off against Fiorentina last month.
Parity was restored six minutes later when Milan's George Weah saw red for a late challenge on Alessandro Birindelli and with both sides reduced to 10 men it was Juventus who had the better of the closing exchanges. Zidane came close with a low long range shot and Fonseca almost sneaked a winner in injury time.
Juve's point lifted them to seventh, still 10 points behind leaders Fiorentina, while Milan remain fourth. Roberto Baggio missed a second half penalty as Inter Milan stumbled to a 1-0 defeat at Parma earlier in the day.
Baggio, who scored 11 penalties out of 11 in the league last season, stepped up to take the 72nd minute spot kick after Ronaldo had been brought down by Italy defender Fabio Cannavaro.
The former Italy captain, famed for his penalty miss at the end of the 1994 World Cup final against Brazil, hit his shot low and hard but wide of Gianluigi Buffon's right hand post. "I did it to please the public," joked
a relaxed Baggio after the match. "Seriously though, I just hit it as I would any other penalty but unfortunately it was too far wide."
Parma had taken the lead through Baggio's Italy team mate Diego Fuser, who curled a sweetly struck freekick inside Gianluca Pagliuca's near post after 51 minutes.
Their eighth Serie A victory of the season kept them within three points of Fiorentina, who beat David Platt's Sampdoria 1-0 thanks to a 27th minute strike by Manuel Rui Costa. Christian Vieri scored his first goal for Lazio in his first Serie A appearance after a four-month injury lay-off.
Italy's 1998 World Cup hero had been sidelined since he limped out of an Italian Cup match in October and had only played two full league matches for the club he joined in the close season from Atletico Madrid. But the big former Juventus striker found the back of the net with a steepling header 11 minutes from time to give Sven Goran Eriksson's Rome side a 1-0 victory at Bologna which rekindles their title challenge.
Lazio move from sixth to third, six points behind Fiorentina and three behind Parma. AS Roma are two points behind their city rivals after being held to a 2-2 draw by Piacenza at the Olympic stadium.
