Juventus hot on trail of United

JUVENTUS got the result they wanted going into the winter break in the Champions’ League at an appropriately snowy Stadio del’ Alpi last night when they comfortably saw off FC Basel on a 4-0 scoreline.

The Italian side got a dream start when French international David Trezeguet, making his first full start of the season for Juve, scored after three minutes. Birendelli had forced a corner off Esposito and Trezeguet got on the end of Iuliano’s flick to put the Swiss on the back foot right from the off. Underfoot conditions in Turin were not easy for either side and the ground staff had done an excellent job making the pitch playable because only an hour before kick-off it was under a heavy layer of snow and when the match began, an orange ball had to be used because of the conditions.

However, that did not faze the home side and they were initially willing to allow time and space to their visitors. But, on 34 minutes Basel were dealt a cruel blow when, against the run of play, a Del Piero free-kick was only parried onto the crossbar by Zuberbuhler and Montero poked in the rebound. Then, on 43 minutes, Juventus really killed the game off and once again it was a defensive error which let them in. Del Piero had slid the ball to Davids in the Basel area and although his cross was blocked, Tacchinardi intercepted Zwyssig’s clearence and scored a beauty from 25 metres to give the home side a 3-0 half time advantage. They killed it off just after half-time when Del Piero found Nedved in the Basel area and he was fouled by Esposito. From the resultant penaly Del Piero himself made it 4 0.]