Juve, Lazio redraw battle lines

But the Biaconeri will still have another 10 Serie A games to go after this weekend and Ancelotti, a tough tackling mid-fielder for Italy in the 1990 World Cup, is taking nothing for granted.

Bari’s coach Eugenio Fascetti will be hoping to avoid further publicity after alleged racist remarks he made last weekend about Torino’s Senegalese defender Djibril Diawara.

Lazio look to bounce back after a humbling 2-1 home defeat to Feyenoord in the European Champions League when they travel to Lecce.

Lazio took things too easy in the last quarter of an hour against the Dutch side and two late goals have made things in Group D much more complicated and bruised team morale.

Coach Sven Goran Eriksson controversially left Chilean striker Marcelo Salas out of the side, saying afterwards: “What counts now is a reaction by the players — one that’s professional, precise and immediate.”

Up North, the Milan derby couldn’t come at a more testing time for the two Lombardy clubs, with AC third on 45 points and Inter fourth on 43.

With Ronaldo and Christian Vieri out through injury, Chilean Ivan Zamorano needs to recover from injury if Inter are to beat the reigning champions.

In Spain, Deportivo la Coruna are six points clear of the chasing pack but all the top five teams in the Primera Liga face what should be simple fixtures this weekend — but all will be aware failure to take maximum points could prove costly at the end of the season.

Realistically there are only five teams still in the title race — Deportivo, Real Zaragoza, Real Madrid, surprise packages Alaves and defending champions Barcelona.

With 12 rounds of games remaining, Deportivo, who visit Malaga on Sunday, would ordinarily be hot favourites were it not for their reputations as eternal chokers.

The Galician club has never won the title and twice snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the 1990s, most famously in 1993-4 when their Brazilian World Cup-winner Bebeto missed a penalty that would have taken the crown to the North West for the first time.

Failure to take all three points in Malaga would set alarm bells ringing. Their 5-1 spanking by Arsenal in the Uefa Cup will not have helped morale although as far as most Deportivo fans are concerned the European prize is on the back burner.

But the chasing quartet also know they can not afford to concede any more ground and none more so than Barca, whose hopes of a third consecutive title were further hit by a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of arch-rivals Real Madrid last weekend.

They are eight points behind Deportivo in fifth and only victory will do against 11th-placed Numancia at the Nou Camp.

Real visit second-from-bottom Oviedo on Saturday although their French World Cup-winning utility man Christian Karembeu is injured for 10 days with a strained left thigh.

With both Barca and Real still with ground to make up on `Super Depor’ and Atletico Madrid mired in the relegation dogfight, hopes remain high that the title could leave Madrid and Barcelona for the first time since 1981-4 when Basque clubs Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao established a shortlived dominance of the Spanish game, winning two titles apiece.

Ahead of the Meringues on goal difference in second are Real Zaragoza, who have the toughest assignment of the weekend on Sunday at ninth-placed Real Mallorca.

Perhaps the team with the least pressure in the leading quintet are Alaves, who have astonished everyone by reaching fourth spot, seven points behind Deportivo, and who visit Rayo Vallecano. In Germany, the top four teams in the Bundesliga all play away from home.

Solid leaders and reigning champions Bayern Munich will be hoping to continue their past successes at VFB Stuggart where they have won 18 times at the Gottlieb-Daimler stadium, a club record for away victories. Second-placed Bayer Leverkusen, five points adrift, will also aim for maximum points on their visit to sixth-placed Kaiserslautern.

Lying seventh in the table, VFL Wolfsburg will be looking to take full advantage if Kaiserslautern slip up and overtake them for the final Uefa Cup slot but must first negotiate the difficult task of beating third-placed Hamburg SV.

Werder Bremen, who are in a dogfight for the last Champions League place with a host of other clubs, will want to put in a professional performance against SSV Ulm who are trying to ease away from the relegation zone.

In the French Cup, amateur side Pontivy, based in Brittany, have pulled the plum draw against runaway first division leaders Monaco at Guingamp. The Pontivy players will be dreaming of scoring past France’s World Cup winning goalkeeper Fabien Barthez, who with the possible exception of Zinedine Zidane is the most feted member in France of that World Cup winning team.

Another David vs Goliath clash sees division three side Paris Red Star host big-money Lyon, Monaco’s closest pursuers. Despite their modest standing, Red Star, in their centenary year, have an impressive history and count Brazilian legend Garrincha among their former players.