Club Italia Offers Clean Sweep In UEFA Cup !

It was an out­stand­ing per­for­mance for Ital­ian foot­ball in the first round of UEFA Cup action, as all four Serie A clubs reg­is­tered first-leg victory. 

AC Milan adjust­ing to a non-Champions League sea­son are full steam ahead win­ning 3 — 1 over FC Zürich.  This tri­umph couldn’t have come at a bet­ter time for Rossoneri man­ager Carlo Ancelotti as his squad are cur­rently last in Serie A, with suc­ces­sive defeats from match­day 1 and 2 of the domes­tic league.

Andriy Shevchenko twice went close for the Rossoneri before play­ing a part in the open­ing goal a minute into extra time of the first half. Zürich goal­keeper Johnny Leoni saved his shot but Marek Jankulovski was on hand to knock in the rebound.   Sec­ond half goals would come from the strik­ing force of young­ster Alexan­dre Pato and for­mer Genoa front­man Marco Bor­riello, both new trans­fers dur­ing pre-season.  FC Zurich would fin­ish the first meet­ing with a con­so­la­tion goal, scored in the 78th minute by Djuric.

In other Ital­ian club action, Sampdoria and Napoli both played a goal feast of their own with each spec­ta­cle reg­is­ter­ing five goals. Emil­iano Bonaz­zoli and Anto­nio Cas­sano both scored twice as Sam­p­do­ria put one foot in the group stage with a crush­ing 5 — 0 vic­tory against the Lithuan­ian cham­pi­ons FBK Kau­nas. Napoli pre­vailed in their five-goal thriller at the Sta­dio San Paolo after Chris­t­ian Mag­gio (a pre-season Sam­p­do­rian import) net­ted the win­ning goal in the 55th minute against oppo­nents Ben­fica.
The Por­tuguese vis­i­tors opened scor­ing in the 16th minute with a goal from on-loan Inter striker David Suazo  but this was quickly equal­ized by Vitale for Napoli two min­utes later.  Final-score Napoli 3 — 2 Benfica.

In the final and only away match for an Ital­ian side, the Udine Uber­men­sch (super­men) main­tained a clean sheet win­ning 2 — 0 over Bun­desliga oppo­nents Borus­sia Dort­mund.  First-half goals from Anto­nio Floro Flo­res and Gökhan Inler placed Udi­nese in the dri­ving seat at the West­falen­sta­dion as the Ital­ian side made the most of sloppy Dort­mund defend­ing to take control. 

Things could have got worse dur­ing the sec­ond half for the home side as the vis­it­ing Uber­men kept on press­ing, for­tu­nately the boys in white and black didn’t humil­i­ate their hosts further.

Full­time Results

AC Milan 3–1 FC Zürich
UC Sam­p­do­ria 5–0 FBK Kau­nas
SSC Napoli 3–2 SL Ben­fica
BV Borus­sia Dort­mund 0–2 Udi­nese Calcio

Goal High­lights

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Tagged as: AC Milan, Alexandre Pato, Andriy Shevchenko, Antonio Cassano, Christian Maggio, Gokhan Inler, Marek Jankulovski, Napoli, Sampdoria, Udinese