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'Nervosismo' in Turin Juventus, Napoli open Serie A in battle of ex-champs
ROME (AP) -- Serie A's feature first-week match, Napoli vs. Juventus, offers an intriguing whiff of Italy's not-so-distant soccer history. In most recent terms, the showdown brings together last season's respective Serie A and B second-place finishers -- though it takes little effort to remember how differently the clubs reacted to their runner-up result. Juventus, which looked to be headed to its record 26th top division title is still trying to recover from the aching disappointment of losing the Serie A crown to Lazio in the season's final week last May. Napoli's late-season push to arrive in Serie B's second spot, meanwhile, was just about as good as first -- vaulting the southern club back to the premier league for the first time after two trying years stuck in the second division. Saturday night, the two clubs will kickoff their 2000-2001 Serie A campaigns in front of an expected capacity crowd in Naples' San Paolo stadium, the field where a legend-in-the-making named Diego Maradona led Napoli to its first Italian league title in 1987, leaving Juventus and its own retiring legend, Michel Platini, in second place. No one is predicting a similar result in this season's final standings. After all Napoli foundered for past decade and ended up being demoted to Serie B in 1998. And though the club showed grit down the stretch last season, it begins its big-league re-entry with such household names as Emiliano Bigica, Pineiro Anderson and Claudio Bellucci in the place of its Argentine soccer demigod, Maradona and Co. In fact, the most notable offseason acquisition in Naples this summer was its coach, popular Czech skipper Zdenek Zeman, wholed Serie A heavyweights Lazio and AS Roma before an aborted stint last season in the Turkish league. The attack-minded coach is trying to pump up his undermanned squad ahead of the imposing opening week opponent. "We must think about ourselves," he told Corriere dello Sport on Wednesday. "Napoli can do it all, we just need to see what it will be. At the beginning, everyone starts from zero." Zeman summed up the challenge of facing the Turin club in the very first week back in Serie A: "Playing Juventus is always an honor, beating them is always a pleasure, and losing is never dishonorable." In fact, where Napoli faded after Maradona's departure, Juventus has always replenished its superstar stock, winning three Italian league titles in the 1990s, with the likes of Frenchman Zinedine Zidane helping to ease the sadness of Platini's adieu. Still, Carlo Ancelotti's current squad is looking more beatable since its crushing defeat to Perugia on May 14 handed the title to Rome's Lazio. A scoreless draw at home Tuesday night to Champions League opponent Deportivo was the latest sign of "nervosismo" on the Turin side, including a red card for Zidane after a spikes-up charge at an opponent. "We ran out of gas," concluded a once-again disappointed Ancelotti, whose squad was knocked out of the Italian Cup last weekend by Brescia. The league's two Roman squads are featured in other two top matches. Defending champion Lazio plays another Serie A newcomer, Atalanta, in Sunday night's match. AS Roma, which also suffered a surprise first-round Italian Cup knockout, hosts Bologna on Sunday afternoon, with its Argentine acquisition Gabriel Batistuta questionable with a nagging leg injury. Batistuta's former team Fiorentina travels to face a revamped AC Parma squad, which lost its Argentine striker, Hernan Crespo, to Lazio. Other matches slated Sunday are AC Milan vs. Vicenza, Perugia vs. Lecce, Reggina vs. Internazionale, Udinese vs. Brescia. The official kickoff of the season will be Bari vs. Verona on Saturday afternoon.
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