Juventus stay tops, but only on goal difference
The Turin side cruised to a comfortable victory at bottom club Como on Saturday. An own goal from Brazilian Juarez gave Juventus an early lead before Marco Di Vaio and Mauro Camoranesi piled more misery on their relegation-threatened hosts by scoring before half-time.
Fomer Juventus defender Fabio Pecchia scored a late goal for the home side who look destined to play in the second division next season.
French striker David Trezeguet, Dutch midfielder Edgar Davids and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon were all missing for Juve after being struck down with flu. The bug spread through the Juve dressing-room earlier in the week and forced several key players, including Buffon, to miss last Wednesday’s 2-1 Champions League defeat at Manchester United. But even a second-string Juventus were rarely troubled by basement boys Como who have won just once all season.
A three goal blitz in four second-half minutes gave Inter Milan a 3-1 win at home to Piacenza and saw them draw level on 48 points with Juventus.
Inter coach Hector Cuper was delighted to return to winning ways after consecutive defeats at Chievo last weekend and to Barcelona in Spain in the Champions League in midweek.
AC Milan’s match at Torino on Saturday night was abandoned due to crowd trouble after 63 minutes with the visitors leading 3-0.
At the start of the second-half Torino supporters, upset with their team’s first-half display, tore up seats and hurled them at police who were forced to use tear gas. The fans then ripped up perimeter fencing and tried to run onto the field only to be charged by police wielding batons and shields. As reports filtered through of more trouble outside the stadium, the police decided to call the game off.
In Spain, Real Sociedad responded to the pressure exerted by championship rivals Real Madrid and beat Osasuna 2-0 to return to the top of the Spanish first division yesterday.
Racing Santander notched up their third successive victory with a 3-0 win at Villarreal to edge further away from the relegation zone, while bottom club Recreativo Huelva improved their chances of survival with a convincing 3-0 win over Atletico Madrid.
Real’s win over Valladolid extended their unbeaten home streak in their Santiago Bernabeu stadium to 46 games, although they still have a long way to go to match their own Spanish first division record of 121 matches between 1957 and 1965.
Fourth-placed Deportivo La Coruna kept up the pressure on the top trio with a 6-0 thrashing of Alaves, the biggest win of the season in the Spanish first division and Deportivo’s biggest victory since their return to the top-flight in 1992.
In Germany Bayern Munich opened up a ten-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga by notching up a 2-0 home win over Nuremberg while their closest title rivals Borussia Dortmund were held by Schalke 04.
Meanwhile crisis club Bayer Leverkusen finally won a match, with a 2-1 victory at Hanover lifting them out of the bottom three.
While Ajax have blown a chance to close the gap on leaders PSV Eindhoven after the Amsterdam giants went down to a 1-0 defeat at Utrecht. Dirk Kuyt’s late was enough to give the home side all three points at the Nieuw Galgewaard Stadion.
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