Milan hurdles Juventus for top spot

Playoff picture heats up as Italian soccer mourns the death Omar Sivori

The Italian Serie A title race heated up with Milan overtaking Juventus in the standings last weekend. A month earlier Juventus seemed to have had an unassailable nine-point lead and was sitting comfortably atop Serie A.
Juve's goalless draw in the south combined with Milan's costly narrow win over Cagliari placed AC Milan ahead of Juventus by virtue of a goal difference.
Messina had only lost twice this season at its San Filippo stadium. Juventus was let down by a combination of imprecise passing and aggressive marking by the home side. Zlatan Ibrahimovic wasted the best chance of the game nine minutes from time, when he broke the offside trap only to blast his shot straight at keeper Marco Storari.
Reigning Italian champion Milan replaced Juventus at the top thanks to its last-gasp win over Cagliari. Even without star striker Andriy Shevchenko, who exited with a fractured cheekbone after just 11 minutes, Milan dominated the proceedings but had to wait until second-half stoppage time before Brazilian winger Serginho lashed the winner into the roof of the net.
Shevchenko needed surgery on his fractured cheekbone, which ruled him out of Milan's first-leg encounter against Manchester United in the first knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League. He is doubtful for the return match.
More accustomed to coming from behind, Inter found itself on the receiving end of a last-minute goal by Udinese's Henok Goitom, which cancelled out Juan Sebastian Veron's earlier strike and left the Italian giants a distant third, 11 points off the lead.
A hat trick by striker Francesco Flachi gave Sampdoria a 3-2 win over Reggina as the battle for Serie A's Champions League berths heated up last weekend.
The result gave Sampdoria 41 points from 25 matches, equal on points but with an inferior goal difference to Udinese, which currently occupies the fourth and final Champions League berth after a 1-1 draw with Inter Milan.
The competition for a place in Europe's top club promises to be more than a two-horse race, however, as Palermo consolidated sixth place on 39 points by beating Lecce 3-2.
AS Roma lies one point behind the Sicilians after a 3-0 victory over Livorno.
Sampdoria's third win in its past four matches -- a sequence that includes a 1-0 victory over Juventus -- boosted the challenge for its first top-four finish since 1994.
Flachi gave them the lead after just eight minutes before netting a second before halftime. Reggina striker Giuseppe Colucci pulled one back for the visitors four minutes after the restart, but with 20 minutes remaining, defender Gaetano De Rosa handled the ball to give Sampdoria a penalty, which Flachi fired in to complete his hat trick.
Sampdoria can't afford to relax with Palermo breathing down their necks after winning a lively match against fellow southerners Lecce.
Striker Cedric Konan gave Lecce an early lead, but the team needed a superb double save by keeper Vincenzo Sicignano to keep out a Eugenio Corini penalty and Luca Toni's shot on the rebound.
Sicignano was powerless, however, to prevent Argentine midfielder Mario Santana grabbing two goals in quick succession just before halftime.
Palermo seemed comfortably in control after the interval, but Konan struck again to equalize in the 67th minute before Italy international Toni sealed the result by poking Simone Barone's cross past Sicignano.
Elsewhere, Serie A's leading scorer, Vincenzo Montella, bagged his 19th goal of the season as Roma cruised past Livorno, the other goals coming from Simone Perrotta and Francesco Totti.
Parma won its relegation dogfight with Brescia 2-1, while Fiorentina's poor form continued as it slumped to a 1-0 defeat against Siena, despite having enjoyed a one-man advantage for most of the match.
Off the pitch, Roma's hopes of finishing in the top four of Serie A and claiming a place in next season's Champions League have been given a major boost by the return to action of Cristian Chivu.
The 24-year-old Romania international, who has been plagued by knee problems for 10 months, played 45 minutes in a friendly match in the capital last Thursday.
Roma hopes the central defender will be available to play against current league leader Juventus on March 5.
Chivu missed the start of the season after having foot surgery and did not make his first appearance until November 3, when he came on as a second-half substitute against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League.
But after suffering a setback against the German side, he had to have more treatment and has been sidelined ever since.
Chivu joined Roma from Dutch giant Ajax in July 2003 for a fee of 18-million euros ($28 million Canadian) and signed a five-year contract.
He was a regular in the Roma side that took second place in Serie A behind AC Milan in 2003/04. Roma is seventh in the league, five points behind fourth-placed Udinese with 14 games left to play.
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Italian soccer mourned the death from cancer of former European Player of the Year Omar Sivori last Friday, who played for both Argentina and Italy. He had been in hospital since September and died at the age of 69, almost a year to the day since the death of his old Juventus teammate John Charles.
Former Juventus teammate Giampiero Boniperti told La Gazzetta dello Sport: "To see Omar play was spellbinding -- one touch of the ball and then that extraordinary and deadly dribble that used to drive opponents crazy.
"Sivori had class, but his greatest gift was that he could think faster than the others."
Giacinto Facchetti, now president of Inter Milan and one of Italy's greatest-ever defenders, said: "He was a great adversary, a player of immense class and character."
Gianni Rivera, Italy's Golden Boy in the 1960s, added: "He was always cocky because he knew he was good. Off the pitch, though, he was extroverted and friendly."
Sandro Mazzola, another 1960s great who was in the Italian team that lost to Brazil in the 1970 World Cup final, said: "He was my inspiration - the only player of his time who knew how to play just behind the strikers. He had infinite skill."
Sivori made his first division debut for River Plate in 1954 and won two Argentine championships with the club.
He played 18 times for Argentina, shining in its 1957 Copa America victory in Peru. A year later, he was transferred to Juventus, where he won Serie A titles in 1958, 1960 and 1961 and the Italian Cup in 1959 and 1960.
While at Juventus, he also won the European Player of the Year award in 1961. Under the less-strict nationality rules of the time, he later won nine caps for Italy, scoring eight goals, and represented the country in the 1962 World Cup in Chile.
He finished his playing career at Napoli, scoring 12 goals in 63 games, before retiring in 1968.
He returned to Argentina to coach Rosario Central and River Plate before taking charge of the national team for the 1974 World Cup qualifiers, but he resigned before the finals over differences with the AFA.
His renowned teammate at Juventus, Welshman Charles, died on February 21 last year at the age of 72.

Publication Date: 2005-02-27
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4960