Juventus bid to salvage some pride
ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Juventus seek to salvage some silverware from a disappointing campaign when they face Lazio in Wednesday's Italian Cup final first leg at Rome's Olympic Stadium.
The Serie A champions have suffered one of their most miserable weeks in recent seasons, starting with their Champions League exit against Coruna.
Then came Sunday's 3-1 loss to Serie A leaders AC Milan, which left them nine points off the pace with nine games remaining.
That prompted coach Marcello Lippi to accept that their championship challenge lay in ruins.
The Cup is treated with barely-concealed disdain by Italy's top teams, who routinely turn out second-string sides until the semifinals.
With Juve's other hopes dashed, however, the Cup has suddenly assumed a new lustre.
"The Italian Cup is an important trophy for us," Lippi told reporters on Tuesday.
"First, because if we win, it would be the 10th triumph in our history, and second because -- along with second place in Serie A -- it's the only remaining objective this season.
"To put the Cup in our trophy cabinet would round off an exceptional 12 months for us."
Winning won't be easy. Juventus' first-choice strikers Alessandro Del Piero and David Trezeguet are both injured and should be replaced by Fabrizio Miccoli and Marco Di Vaio for the first leg.
Injuries to Gianluca Zambrotta, Paolo Montero, Mark Iuliano, Alessandro Birindelli and the suspension of Ciro Ferrara have decimated the defence.
Lippi can hardly take comfort from his experiences of recent finals against the Rome-based club either.
As coach of Juventus and then Inter Milan he lost the 1998 and 2000 Italian Supercups and the 2000 Italian Cup to Sven Goran Eriksson's Lazio.
Lazio, meanwhile, would be happy with a repeat of their 2-0 league victory over Juve earlier this season.
They start without Argentine striker Claudio Lopez, who has been granted a leave of absence for personal reasons, but his replacement, Simone Inzaghi, looked sharp when scoring in the 2-2 home draw with Udinese at the weekend.
