From the papers

March 2nd, 2000
Juventus Official Site

The UEFA Cup fourth-round first-leg match between Juventus and Celta Vigo is keenly anticipated. Juventus manager Carlo Ancelotti wants to make sure that his players do not underestimate the opposition even though he is fully aware of his own team's strengths.

The Corriere dello Sport urges Juve not to follow in Lazio's footsteps and quotes coach Ancelotti on the subject: "Did you see what happened to Eriksson's team? They were thinking ahead and paid the price against Feyenoord. We must learn from them. If we focus on the Bari game and worry about our first place in the League, this would be the worst possible mistake going into the Celta game. It is such a cliché, but you have to take one game at a time."

The other sports dailies focus on two players in particular. The Gazzetta dello Sport picks out Filippo Inzaghi who can equal Alessandro Del Piero's goal tally in European competition tonight. The Gazzetta's main headline refers to this further threat to Del Piero's much-publicised goalscoring record.

Inzaghi, in fact, is only one goal behind the Juve playmaker in European competition and has three less in all competitions. The Juventus number nine has the opportunity to catch up against Celta Vigo and improve his goalscoring average. Alex scored his first 25 goals for the Bianconeri in 54 games compared to Inzaghi who took just over half the number of games to achieve the same. Clearly, the goals-per-game ratio is in Inzaghi's favour both in the head-to-head with his team-mate but also his overall average of 0.785 goals per game.

Alessandro Birindelli speaks his mind in Tuttosport about the fact that he would probably be first choice anywhere else, but at Juve he has to settle for a spot on the bench. As he himself states: " It's up to the manager. When I first came I was playing on a more regular basis, true enough, but that does not bother me: I'd much rather play 20 times for this great team than 35 for another."
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