Juve forced to wait for Champions League
Juventus missed the chance to seal Champions League qualification yesterday when they only salvage a 1-1 home draw with relegated Salernitana with a stoppage-time goal from Adrien Rabiot.
The France midfielder bundled home Juve’s leveller in the first minute of added time after another uninspiring display which brought boos from fans at the final whistle.
Niccolo Pierozzi seemed to have condemned Juve to perhaps the most embarrassing defeat of their strange season with his first Serie A goal, in the 27th minute in Turin.
Toma Basic almost won the match for rock-bottom Salernitana with the last kick of the game when he flashed just over the bar at the end of a counter-attack.
Since the start of February, Juve, in fourth, have won just three times in all competitions but, after a fifth straight league draw, they are six points ahead of sixth-placed Roma with five Champions League spots available.
Massimiliano Allegri’s side, who hit the woodwork three times, also play the Italian Cup final on Wednesday against inform Atalanta.
Later Roma are at fifth-placed Atalanta – who have a game in hand – with the pair level on 60 points and battling for the final spot after contrasting fortunes in the Europa League semi-finals.
Atalanta hammered Marseille on Thursday to reach their first ever European final while Roma suffered late heartache as they were eliminated at Bayer Leverkusen, denying supporters an all-Italian final in Dublin.
Juventus and Bologna, who won 2-0 at Napoli on Saturday, will be watching with interest as anything but a win for Roma will guarantee both teams a place in the Champions League.
A point behind Roma are local rivals Lazio following their 2-0 win over Empoli in the day’s early match, when the capital city club celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first league title.
Lazio have won the Scudetto twice, in 1974 and 2000, and the first title winners are both beloved by fans and notorious in Italy for their outlaw behaviour.
The ‘74 vintage was led by deceased bad boy striker Giorgio Chinaglia, who later played with Pele and Franz Beckenbauer for the New York Cosmos in the North American Soccer League.
As well as Chinaglia, the team also contained Luciano Re Cecconi, known as The Blond Angel, who in 1977 was shot dead in a Rome jewellers after what is claimed to have been a prank gone wrong.
In 1980, the team’s captain Pino Wilson was caught up in a match-fixing scandal known as “Totonero” – a play on the Italian for football pools – which ended with Lazio and Milan being relegated.
Wilson, who died in 2022, was banned for three years while teammates Massimo Cacciatori, Bruno Giordano and Lionello Manfredonia were also hit with significant bans for their roles in the scandal, and decided to retire.
The remaining members of the team lined up on the pitch and basked in the warm applause and Roman sunshine as Lazio easily got past Empoli thanks to late goals in each half from Patric and Matis Vecino.
Empoli are two points above the relegation zone and will drop into the bottom three if 18th-placed Udinese win at Lecce today.