Palermo joined Venezia as the only two non-Serie A clubs left in the competition by knocking out Brescia last night, 3-2 (4-3 on aggregate). So here are the matchups for the Round of 16 (first leg the week of Dec 3): Sampdoria vs Milan Palermo vs Roma Modena vs Lazio Venezia vs Parma Reggina vs Inter Bologna vs Udinese Perugia vs Chievo Siena vs Juventus
nice, forza palermo!...but only 2 teams outside A in the Final 16.....doesnt make for a very compelling cup.
It never is. The best we can hope for is for Palermo or one of the underdog teams to make a run to the semis, like Perugia last year. And maybe even make it to the final, so the last round would have meaning for at least one team (unlike last year, when Roma had already qualified for the UEFA Cup just by being there and the second leg of the final was just a celebration-capping formality for Milan). It'd be great if a team like, say, Chievo, would manage to lift the cup. That would be a real achievement for them.
The Italian league cups dont really mean that much though do they! The league in Italy is by far the most important thing, and the domestic cups mean very little, a little bit like the league cup in England but nothing like the F.A cup, which still has prestige. I wonder how teams like Milan and Juventus consider playing these cups, and if they take them seriously as their English counterparts!!
No, as we discussed before, it (there's only one cup competition in Italy, unless you count the Coppa Italia of Serie C) is not nearly as interesting as the FA Cup, for various reasons. But the big clubs do participate, if only to give their squad players a run-out every few weeks. And since it's another piece of hardware that is easier to win the Scudetto, they don't want to make it any easier for the little clubs to do well. So ... it's boring.
Schedule for Ottavi di Finale Here are the times and dates for the Round of 16 (I sure wish English had an equivalent of Ottavi di Finale ie "Eighthfinals"). Code: Andata martedì 2 dicembre Siena-Juve ore 21 mercoledì 3 Bologna-Udinese ore 14 Venezia-Parma ore 16 Modena-Lazio ore 18 Sampdoria-Milan ore 21.10 giovedì 4 Chievo-Perugia ore 15.30 Roma-Palermo ore 18.00 Inter-Reggina ore 21.00 Ritorno martedì 16 dicembre Perugia-Chievo h.15 mercoledì 17 Parma-Venezia ore 14 Lazio-Modena ore 16 Palermo-Roma ore 17.30 Reggina-Inter ore 21.00 giovedì 18 Juventus-Siena ore 14.15 Udinese-Bologna ore 17.30 Milan-Sampdoria ore 20.45
The Siena-Juventus Coppa game has been moved up one week to Nov 25. This is a result of Juve's CL game in Istanbul being postponed to Dec 2 as a result of the security situation there.
Juventus won that game, 2-1. All the other games will be shown live on RAI International TV this week. Here's the schedule (all times EST): Wed Dec 3 8 am Bologna-Udinese 10 am Venezia-Parma 12 noon Modena-Lazio 3 pm Sampdoria-Milan Thu Dec 4 9:30 am Verona-Perugia 12 noon Roma-Palermo 3 pm Inter-Reggina
The full results of this week's 3rd round second legs: Juventus 2 Siena 1 (agg 4-2) Udinese 3 Bologna 0 (agg 4-0) Parma 0 Venezia 1 (agg 2-1) Lazio 1 Modena 0 (agg 3-0) Milan 1 Sampdoria 0 (agg 2-0) Perugia 3 Chievo 0 (agg 4-2) Palermo 1 Roma 2 (agg 1-3) Reggina 1 Inter 1 (agg 2-3) The only upset was Perugia seeing off Chievo, which was a mild upset to say the least, despite Perugia's poor league standing. They continue their wierd trend of doing well in cups but not in the league. I watched parts of the Palermo-Roma and Reggina-Inter games. Palermo was really having the run of play against Roma until a fluky deflected goal by Tommasi of all people put them down 2-0 on aggregate and meant they needed to score three times. No chance. The Reggina-Inter game was just tragic. Reggina took a deserved lead in the first half, then had a player sent off just before halftime. The 10 men held out bravely until 2 minutes into injury time when Cruz fired a long shot which hit the bar. Where did it bounce? Straight off the shoulder of the Reggina keeper Belardi and into the goal. I'm sorry, but nobody deserves to lose that way. Anyway, the quarterfinals (scheduled for Jan 14 and 21) are: Milan-Roma Lazio-Parma Udinese-Inter Perugia-Juventus That first one - rematch of last year's final and meeting of the top two teams in the league - is obviously the plum matchup. Ironically, the two meet on Jan 6 in the championship, so will be meeting three times in just over two weeks.
Udinese-Inter drew 0-0 yesterday in their first leg... Lazio hosts Parma today, Milan-Roma also...the other match is tomorrow. hope either Udinese or Perugia can advance to the semifinals to give the Coppa a true underdog like Cups in other nations have...
well Parma has some work to do as Lazio has won the first leg 2-0. Milan-Roma should be interesting...
semifinals are set for the Coppa...Its Lazio-Milan and Inter-Juve. The draw is on Friday I believe...
updating... Lazio downed Milan 2-1 and Inter and Juve drew 2-2 in the first legs of the semifinal round. seconds legs next week...
Halftime score: Lazio 4 Milan 0. Damn, I wish I'd taped this one. Two more goals for Fiore, I think that's 3 in the last 2 games.
so its Lazio v Juve for the Coppa final.....after Juve took out Inter on PKs in the other semifinal... Mancini's team will again face a side with "other aspirations"...
Believe it or not, the Inter-Juventus game was the best game of soccer I've watched in a long time. It's hard to believe it came in the Coppa, but the situations with both teams meant that they were each highly motivated - Juventus coming off their worst league defeat in memory, needed to prove they still have the stomach to compete against the top teams; Inter, with things looking up after adding Adriano and Stankovic, but still, coming off a bad league result and needing to prove that, well, they aren't the same old Inter. Juventus, needing to win, pressed and pressed. The speed of play and ball movement was truly amazing. I said, "this is the perfect set-up for Adriano or Vieri to score on a counter", and within a minute, it happened, as the Brazilian beat the offside trap and easily dispensed with Chimenti to score. After that, the Juve players rarely lost sight of Adriano. He got occasional touches, but he rarely got a second. But Juventus didn't lose the initiative and kept up some intense pressure. Still, a speculative long shot by Kily Gonzalez clannged the bar - that would've made it 2-0. But instead, Juve equalized after Miccoli turned a shot toward goal which was deflected fortuitously to a wide-open Tudor to tap in. 1-1 at the half, but Juventus still needed to score, and Del Piero and Nedved came in off the bench. Nedved broke toward goal only to be hacked down by Cordoba who was sent off. Not long after, Montero seemed to bring down Emre (?) in the box, but the ref waved play on. Juventus finally took the lead on a rare headed goal by Del Piero who the Inter defense lost track of in the box on a corner. But Inter was always dangerous, and finally equalized in the 5th and final minute of added time! Stankovic crossed it to somebody who headed it at Chimenti who could only block it straight into the path of Adani. 2-2 and into extra time. The teams appeared spent in overtime. It wasn't a case of playing for penalties but that they were just exhausted like heavyweight fighters in the late rounds. Juventus, with the extra man, pushed the action but couldn't break through. Every PK was made decisively until Vieri's 5th shot for Inter was saved by Chimenti. Miccoli faked Fontana left and slid it right, and that was it. Wow. The game had it all.
Thought I'd revive this thread in honor of the final being played tonight. Guess the result of the first leg didn't make it into this thread. Lazio leads 2-0 over Juventus going into tonight's game. I won't be following it on-line, as I'm taping it, but here are the probable starting lineups:- Juventus Chimenti Ferrara Legrottaglie Thuram Birindelli Zambrotta Maresca Appiah Nedved Del Piero Trezeguet Lazio Sereni Oddo Stam Mihajlovic Favalli Fiore Giannichedda Cesar Liverani Corradi Muzzi
forgot about this thread... I made one in the Juvetus forum, it includes spoilers https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111455
Yes, Juve managed to equalize 24 seconds into the second half, but then it was all Lazio. Corradi's nice header capped off a period of dominance and completely deflated the home team who would've needed to score ANOTHER two goals to win. As usual this season, it was Juve's defense who let them down. Congrats to Lazio.