Juventus v Roma: Can Nedved avoid a share of the points?

European Leagues / Dan Fitch / 15 February 2008 / Leave a Comment

Dan "The Betting Man" Fitch tells us why challengers for Serie A runners-up spot Juventus and Roma are likely to get a share of the spoils

Italy is a nation based on tradition. Be it recipes that are passed down through the generations, or years of political incompetence; some things will never change.

When it comes to football, the Italians remain reassuringly traditional, but occasionally they are willing to give the elbow to the things that don't work. For instance, you no longer see Italian clubs importing British players. This is because not only would the Brits spectacularly fail to adapt to the Italian game, but they would also spend the whole time complaining that there was nowhere in Milan which sold Heinz Baked Beans or Angel Delight.

The latest thing that the Italians have ditched, is the outdated notion of having a title race. Serie A these days, is all about second place. Only geeks want to be at the top of the class, the cool kids are far too busy wasting their potential.

This weekend sees third placed Juventus take on second placed Roma, in the race to be nowhere near as good as Inter Milan. All the action can be seen via Betfair Live Video.

The match is the main course of a mouth-watering day of football, as the Italians attempt to copy the sort of all-you-can-eat televised buffet, that the English Premier League serves up on a weekly basis.

Inter's match against Livorno and Milan's trip to Parma, will both be shown live in Italy, before the showdown between Juventus and Roma. These sort of staggered kick off times are common place in the Premier League and lovers of Italian football will be hoping that this experiment will not become the norm. Otherwise the logical conclusion is that five years down the line, Catania will be playing Napoli somewhere in Thailand. And no one wants to see that.

Juventus come into this game on the back of a good away win at Udinese. The home team had taken the lead in the sixth minute and Juventus could easily have been two down at half time as Udinese dominated. The second half saw a great comeback from Juve, as they equalised through Camoranesi on the hour and then unsurprisingly notched the winner through Iaquinta.

This win brought Juventus' unbeaten run to thirteen games, in which they have faced both the Milan sides. Ranieri's team have performed beyond expectations and a Champions League spot now seems assured. A second placed finish will be a bonus for Juventus and without any European football to worry about, they will face far less pressure in the run-in than Roma.

The clash with Juventus is one of two huge games that Roma will face this week. On Tuesday they play host to a Real Madrid side in great form and the price of [34] for Roma to win the Champions League shows how little they are fancied to progress.

Roma's match last weekend, resulted in a routine win over Reggina, in which they never got out of first gear. Goals either side of half time from Christian Panucci and Amantino Mancini couldn't mask the flaws in a team that aren't really gelling.

Juventus should have Trezeguet and Camoranesi available on Saturday, despite both missing training this week. Tinkerman Ranieri surprised Roma earlier on in the season by fielding a three pronged attack of Trezeguet, Iaquinta and Del Piero, but I'd expect him to stick with a conventional 4-4-2 this time. New signing Mohamed Sissiko will probably start on the bench, which bodes well for Juventus' hopes of keeping possession.

Roma will be hoping that their captain Francesco Totti will be back amongst the goals, having not netted since his return from injury. The omens do not look good though, as he has never scored at Juventus in Serie A.

I can't see Roma winning this, which will allow Inter to further stretch their lead at the top. Juventus are [2.42], with the draw [3] and Roma [3.9] and my money will be on the stalemate. The price of [3.65] for under 1.5 goals is tempting, in a match where the teams could well stifle each other. A low scoring Italian match? Some things never change.