I forgot to put Soccerage's preview up
http://www.soccerage.com/en/13/r8533.html
BACKGROUND:
Lazio and Juventus will face each other at the Stadio Olimpico for the 69th time in Serie A on Saturday night.
Nearly perfect equilibrium for both teams in terms of victories, where the biancocelesti won 25 times against the bianconeri's 24 victories; the match ended 19 times in a draw.
Last year's encounter ended in a 0-0 and Buffon had saved a second half penalty from Fiore on that occasion. The last Lazio win came on the 24th of November 2001 thanks to a Liverani's lob after a mistake in midfield by Tacchinardi. Juve's last victory was on the 17th of April 1999 when a Henry's brace awarded the bianconeri with a 3-1 away victory, which in the end resulted crucial for Lazio's league title loss against Milan.
The home side come from a much needed Coppa Italia win which has brought some fresh air around the team, following some bad results both in Serie A and the Champions League. Mancini's squad needs to win this match to keep in touch with the big guns and get that much needed extra motivation to be able to go in Prague and win. The Champions League encounter might actually end up distracting the Lazio players who might not be 100% focused on the Serie A match, however obtaining a positive result against Juventus might be very important for the team's current season.
Juventus on the other hand just arrive to this match from their worst week of this season following consecutive defeats against Inter and Galatasaray. If for the Champions League encounter one can argue that Lippi only fielded his second string players, which is still a very strong line-up, and the team played a good first 60 minutes in which only poor finishing prevented them from winning the match, against Inter Lippi's team looked just a shadow of the team everyone had admired and tipped for Serie A supremacy in the previous weeks. So for the Tuscan coach, the pre-match training must have focused mostly on the psychological aspect, to try and get the team back on track and continue where they left off prior to the Inter match.
Lazio's main problem this season seems to be the attack where in more than one occasion, all forwards failed to deliver, even though Simone Inzaghi has at times done quite well and deservely received a call-up for the Italian national team two weeks ago.
On the other hand, as underlined by Thuram, Juve's main problem this season is the defence or rather lack of it considering that the bianconeri have conceded 12 goals in Serie A so far from 11 matches played, while last year they had only conceded 6 goals during the same period. The problem lies in the aging defenders who most of them are well over the 30 year age mark. If things go on like this, Moggi might be pressed to buy a quality defender in January, top of the list being Lucio.
TEAM NEWS:
Lazio - Mancini will be able to recover Stam for this important encounter. This will surely be an important recovery since Lazio without Stam is very easily perforated. Stankovic will be serving the first of four matches in which he is banned, whilst Cesar is still unavailable.
Juventus - Despite the two successive defeats, Lippi will still continue using his much beloved turn over, and he will consequently field players who have not played last Tuesday in Dortmund. Only Birindelli is unavailable whilst Zambrotta has recovered completely from his muscular injury.
PROBABLE FORMATIONS:
Lazio (4-4-2) - Peruzzi; Stam, Negro, Mihajlovic, Favalli; Fiore, Giannichedda, Albertini, Zauri; Corradi, S. Inzaghi
Juventus (4-2-3-1) - Buffon; Thuram, Legrottaglie, Montero, Zambrotta; Tacchinardi, Appiah; Camoranesi, Nedved, Del Piero; Trezeguet
PLAYERS TO WATCH:
Fiore (Lazio) - Last season he missed a penalty against the bianconeri which would have given the victory to his team; he will be surely trying to make amends.
Del Piero (Juventus) - Even though he is out of form, as it usually happens to him for the first few months after an injury, Lippi is still trusting in his class knowing that sooner or later this trust will be re-paid.