Serie A Match Preview: Inter Milan v Juventus

European Leagues / Dan Fitch / 21 March 2008 / Leave a Comment

Dan Fitch considers the likelihood of an upset at the San Siro with the visit of a steadily improving Juventus, and laments the commercialisation of the game as the Old Lady touts herself to the highest bidder.

In life you've got to take your chances. If you were say, an amputee model, whose earning capacity was greatly reduced ever since you found yourself in a position where you could only wear long trousers, then meeting a recently bereaved multi-millionaire rock star that's just inherited a vegetarian food empire, should be viewed as an opportunity.

Play your cards right and after a couple of years you could be hobbling away from the divorce court with twenty-odd million. Not a bad return for merely putting up with eating tofu every night and having to listen to the old man singing Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da in the shower each morning.

In Serie A this week there were opportunities aplenty, but no one stepped up and grabbed it with both hands. On Wednesday night, all of the top five sides had the opportunity to inflict pain upon their rivals in the battle for Champions League football and the Serie A title. Yet despite this chance, not one of them managed to claim a win.

On Saturday night, Inter host Juventus in the Derby d'Italia. As ever, this match is just as important for reasons of pride, as for the three points on offer and all the action can be caught on Betfair Live Video.

Both Inter and Juve actually fared better than Roma, Fiorentina and AC Milan on Wednesday, as they at least claimed a point apiece. Inter will count themselves lucky to have won this point, having had to deal with wave after wave of Genoa attacks. All had started well when Inter took an early lead through Suazo, but they were reduced to ten men just before half time when Pele was sent off (not the New York Cosmos bloke).

The second half was all about Genoa, who were inspired by their substitute, Serie A top scorer Marco Borriello. Borriello had a goal disallowed and later hit the crossbar, before finally netting the equaliser in the 85th minute. The seventeen goal striker is [2.54] to top the Italian scoring charts.

But luckily for Inter, the in-form Roma slumped to a surprise defeat at Lazio, stretching the gap at the top to seven points. Roma have recently looked like they just might be able to bridge the gap, so this is a major blow to their confidence, which will be hard to recover from. With Roma facing the disruption of two big games against Manchester United, it is hard to oppose Inter at [1.18] for the Serie A title.

Juventus ground out a deathly dull draw with Empoli, which truly lived up to the old stereotypes regarding Italian football. Juve have been in very patchy form, winning just five of their last ten games in Serie A. Despite their unconvincing displays, I think Juventus will finish third fairly comfortably. Neither Fiorentina nor Milan have the consistency to overhaul the Turin side, who are [1.31] for a top three finish.

This will represent a very good season for Juventus, who will go into the summer planning some major rebuilding work to progress to the next level. To enable such plans, Juventus are resorting to the very thing that all modern football clubs must succumb to if success is to come their way; selling their soul.

Juventus have just signed a deal for the naming rights of their new stadium, with the Italian company Sportfive. I guess this will sound better than KitKat Crescent, but when a club of Juventus' stature stoops to this sort of thing, you do wonder where the commercialisation of our game will end.

It is tempting to think that the challenge of hosting Juventus will shake Inter from their recent malaise, but morale at the club does seem to be very low, despite their league position. This was made especially evident when a lip reader revealed that when recently substituted against Palermo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic said of Mancini "I hope this guy leaves soon".

I see another dull draw on the horizon, at [3.15], with Inter [2.16] and Juve [4.3]. One opportunity Italian clubs never ignore, is that of doing just enough to get by. A point shared here, would not be a disaster for either side.