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SEMIFINAL FIRST LEG

Juve scent a Real chink

AFP, Madrid
Juventus coach Marcello Lippi is coming to the Spanish capital brimming with confidence ahead of Tuesday's European Champions League semi-final first leg with holders Real Madrid.
"I'm not worried by Real Madrid," said the coach of the team nicknamed The Old Lady on Sunday.
"No real champion loses 5-1 at home to a middle-of-the-table side. It tells me there is something wrong there because it's difficult to think of any way that we could end up losing 5-1 at home" commented Lippi, reflecting on Real's 5-1 loss at home to Real Mallorca on Saturday.
"But we are under no illusion that Tuesday will be a different game and that Real will be doing their best to forget that last game," added Lippi with a conciliatory touch, lest he be made to eat his
words.
Against Mallorca, Real looked a world away from the side that dazzled in their two quarter-final outings against Manchester United but the European champions stay at the top of the Spanish first division by the slender margin of one point.
However, Real's worse league loss for four years will not have done much for morale in the Madrid dressing room ahead of arguably their most important game of the season.
By contrast, Juventus hold an eight point lead over Inter with three games to go and can expect to open the bubbly in celebration of their 27th Serie A title next weekend after Saturday's 0-0 draw at Lazio.
Lippi said that he will come to Madrid with a 21-man squad but will have to make two changes to key players from the side that started in their 2-1 win over Barcelona in the Nou Camp two weeks ago, a victory that ensured their continued progress.
Italian international defender
Paolo Montero and Juve's nonstop Dutch midfielder Edgar Davids are both suspended and their places are likely to be taken respectively by Mark Iuliano and Igor Tudor respectively.
Midfielder Alessio Tacchinardi is also serving a one match ban after picking up his quota of yellow cards against Barcelona, but the reserve midfielder's absence is less critical.
Marcelo Salas continues to recuperate in Turin from the knee injury he picked up six weeks ago, although there is a chance the Chilean striker may be ready to play in the second leg.
Real coach Vicente Del Bosque has nearly his full contingent available and is expected to be able to name the same side that started in their 4-3 loss at Manchester United two weeks ago, and that also took to the field on Saturday.
Del Bosque is only without Raul Gonzalez, who only trained with the ball at his feet for the first time in two weeks on Sunday, following his recent appendix operation.
Despite the inevitable calls from
the media for him to make changes, mainly advocating throwing the prodigious young striker Javier Portillo into the fray, Del Bosque is unlikely to tinker with his team in the wake of the Mallorca debacle.
He made it clear that he was not going to panic and make wholesale changes on Sunday, even on the back of a result as poor as that on Saturday.
"We are first in the league and in the semi-finals of the Champions League. We haven't
got anything to feel embarrassed about. It was just a bad night and Tuesday will be a different night," sais Del Bosque, in his usual phlegmatic fashion.
Nevertheless, Mallorca's demonstration that the Santiago Bernabeu stadium is a far from impregnible citadel, will have given The Old Lady a little more spring in her step.
The Italians are also still smarting from their last meeting with Madrid, nearly five years ago in the final of the 1998 Champions League, when Real won 1-0, and a few survi-
vors of that encounter are looking for revenge.
"I still remember that game very clearly. To lose in such a fashion was very painful. I have won one Champions League in 1996 but after our two most recent campaigns, when we failed to live up to our own expectations, I'm eager for more success, " said Juventus striker Alessandro Del Piero.