While Juventus Grinds, AC Milan Unwinds Before Serie A Season
Copyright � 1999 Nando Media
Copyright � 1999 Agence France-Presse
MILAN (July 4, 1999 11:07 p.m. EDT http://www.sportserver.com) - Italy's top clubs will be making very different use of the summer sun this week, as Juventus will sweat out its training for the Intertoto tournament while AC Milan will lounge around in a swimming pool.
The new season may be nearly two months away, but the stars of the Serie A are already limbering up, albeit in very different ways.
Juventus' punishment for failing to secure a place in the UEFA Cup is the back-door route via the Intertoto, which the Turin club will start play in on July 17 against either Romanian or Bosnian opposition.
Coach Carlo Ancelotti already has 14 players hard at work at their Chatillon training camp in the Italian Alps. Another 13, including big-name stars like Alessandro Del Piero and Zinedine Zidane, will arrive on July 10.
And Ancelotti has made it clear there wont't be much of a holiday.
The coach's regime means that every hour of the day is allocated, with the players getting up at 8.00 AM and training until after 8 at night.
Ancelotti has a lot of personal credibility riding on the coming season. The 40-year-old inherited the team from Marcello Lippi last February and despite improving its league form, failed to achieve anything in wins.
Now he must prepare a largely second-string side for the Intertoto, caught between club officials' demands for a UEFA Cup place and the need to avoid burning out his best players too early in the coming season.
"We're going to be running risks," he said. "Because our preparations are not geared to the Intertoto but to the Serie A championship. We're not snubbing anything or anybody and we know that we'll be facing teams who could cause us problems. But the risks have to be weighed up."
Milan's major worry is whether its players are enjoying the luxury Sardinian hotel complex and swimming pool enough.
Ten players are already there, basking in the sunshine at Porto Cervo -- Sardinia's Costa Smeralda coastline being a mecca for Serie A soccer players. The rest of the squad will arrive in the coming week.
Paolo Baffoni, a trainer on the Milan staff, has been putting the reigning champions through light exercises and a few tests, but nothing strenuous.
"The important thing is for people not to feel obliged to do anything," he said. "Everyone is free to organize their stay as they like."
And he admitted: "It would hardly be appropriate to call this a training camp."
The serious stuff won't start until July 20, when preseason workouts start in earnest back at the Milanello base.
Bolstered by the arrival of Ukrainain striker Andriy Shevchenko, Milan is among "The Magnificent Seven" that stand to win the title next season.
Juventus, hoping that Del Piero will justify his new $5.5 million a year salary, is in the group along with Inter Milan, which has splashed out $50 million to buy Christian Vieri as Ronaldo's strike partner.
Inter, like Juventus and Parma, will be training in Val d'Aosta in the weeks ahead, while Fiorentina starts on Monday in the Dolomites.
Lazio, denied the league title on the final day of last season, also starts its long road back to the top from Porto Cervo next week, while AS Roma, now under ambitious ex-Milan coach Fabio Capello, is hanging out at its Austrian hideaway of Kapfenberg.
