Ancelotti satisfied

February 28, 2000
Juventus Official Site

It was no wonder Juventus coach Carlo Ancelotti leapt from the bench at the final whistle of what was a pulsating encounter against Roma. Not only had his team picked up three valuable points in the title race, but they had done so after being reduced to ten men.

A justifiably satisfied Ancelotti felt that the players sacrificed themselves for what he described as "the collective good" after Montero's "instinctive" handball, which led to his expulsion. He said, "The game has left a great impression on me and I feel it worked in our favour that we were reduced to ten men when it was 1-1."

This was without doubt one of Ancelotti's sweetest victories: "There can be no question marks over the victory. It was down to the players' desire to win." The coach even joked about keeping Alex Del Piero on the pitch when it seemed that a extra defender was called for: "I left Del Piero on because I'm a nice person." However, he did explain that the team had been in a similar position during the UEFA Cup game in Sofia and survived: "I was proved right in keeping on our attacking players then and it worked again, although I have to give Zidane and Alex a lot of credit for keeping their defenders busy."

Ancelotti was in such a good mood that he didn't even mind that his team were now being compared favourably to Marcello Lippi's all-conquering outfit: "They certainly won a lot of trophies," but he went on, "This group of players have overcome all the criticism aimed at them at the beginning of the season. We have grown in stature throughout the campaign and I'm sure the other title challengers have noted this."

However, any talk of the Scudetto is out of the question. "It's too early to talk about the title, although I would say that Parma and Fiorentina are out of the running and Roma have slipped up, but the rest are still in there. Plus, the Milan clubs do not have any European matches to worry about," he said.
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