Juventus Join Lazio at Top After Win Over Milan
TURIN, Italy, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Juventus moved into second place in Serie A, level on points with leaders Lazio, after an impressive 3-1 home win over champions AC Milan. The result followed Roma's 4-1 win over Lazio in the Rome derby and left the Italian title race wide open.
Juventus took the game to Milan and twice come close to opening the scoring through defender Ciro Ferrara -- one of his strong headers struck the post and the other was brilliantly saved by Milan goalkeeper Christian Abbiati.
But Milan took the lead against the run of play in the 21st minute when Luigi Sala's firm header came out off the post, struck the leg of Juventus midfielder Zinedine Zidane and crossed the line.
The goal did little to knock Juventus off their stride and two minutes later they drew level when Antonio Conte headed home a perfectly delivered right wing free kick from Alessandro Del Piero.
German international Oliver Bierhoff had a great chance to restore Milan's lead before the break but he blasted over from close range.
Del Piero, looking truly back to his best, had a hand in Juve's second with his neat through-ball picking out Filippo Inzagi, whose left shot gave Abbiati no chance.
Juventus, on top throughout, showed no signs of easing off and Del Piero forced another excellent save out of Abbiati in the 56th minute as he continued to torment the Milan defence.
It was no surprise when Juventus added a third goal in injury time. Alessio Tacchinardi lobbed a high ball into the penalty area and Yugoslav substitute Darko Kovacevic headed past Abbiati.
SHOCKED LAZIO
The win was even sweeter for Juventus as earlier in the day AS Roma had thrashed Lazio 4-1 in an explosive Rome derby. Marco Delvecchio and Vincenzo Montella each scored twice in a remarkable first half performance as rampant Roma ripped Lazio's normally tight defence apart.
"It's hard to explain a defeat like this, especially since the match was virtually over after 10 minutes," Lazio's Swedish coach Sven Goran Eriksson said. Roma took the lead after just seven minutes when Delvecchio exploited a perfect through-ball from Italy under-21 midfielder Christian Zanetti, slotting the ball just inside goalkeeper Luca Marchegiani's right-hand post.
Four minutes later Roma doubled their lead in a copy of their first goal, with Montella racing on to a long pass and deftly chipping over a sliding Marchegiani from the right of the penalty area.
Served brilliantly by Italy playmaker Francesco Totti, Delvecchio knocked in his own rebound from one metre out to make it 3-0 in the 26th minute. Roma's party was complete five minutes from the interval when Montella again trapped a long ball and beat both defender Sinisa Mihajlovic and Marchegiani to slot home into an empty goal from the area's edge.
Lazio got a second half consolation goal through a Sinisa Mihajlovic penalty early in the second half. "If we continue to play with that kind of speed it's going to be tough for anyone to beat us," Roma coach FabioCapello said. "We can win the title. Today we've shown we've got both the players and the determination to do it."
On a high-scoring day Inter Milan routed lowly Lecce 6-0 with goals from six foreign players -- Brazil's Ronaldo, Chile's Ivan Zamorano, Yugoslav Vladimir Jugovic, Argentine Javier Zanetti, Greece's Grigorios Georgatos and Uruguay's Alvaro Recoba.
Parma, confirming their return to form, came from behind to beat bottom club Cagliari after the Sardinians had taken the lead midway through the second half through Patrike Mboma. Argentina's Hernan Crespo equalised from the spot a minute later and then in-form Marco Di Vaio took over, scoring twice on the counter-attack.
