THE JUVENTUS team which comes to Old Trafford on Wednesday in the European Cup semi-final first leg would probably be well satisfied with a draw, hoping to finish things off, as they have before, in Turin. Although Juve are in a better state of health and form than Internazionale, United's previous Italian victims, they are extremely lucky, once again, to have survived so far in the competition and are hardly firing on all cylinders.
It must have been a traumatising moment for the team when Marcello Lippi, rather than risk going down with the ship, jumped off the bridge. That £3.5m contract with Inter tantalisingly awaited, but he has had the good sense not to grasp the nettle there yet.
The crazy decision of Massimo Moratti, Inter's president, to sack Gigi Simoni just after Inter had qualified for the European Cup quarter-finals and bring in the stop-gap Mircea Lucescu bore bitter fruit in Genoa.
There, four days after Inter had been held to a draw at San Siro by United, the players, in the words of one Italian critic: "settled accounts with the manager", making little concerted effort as they slipped to a 4-0 defeat.
After Lippi, Carlo Ancelotti, already Juve's designated coach for next season, was ready to take the immediate plunge, despite the hostility of Juventus fans who plastered walls and even the plinths of Turin's city's statues with anti-Ancelotti slogans.
It must be something of a reflection on what had gone on that the former manager of Parma and star midfielder for Roma and Milan has improved morale, not least, it seems, by relaxing the training schedule. But even he cannot make bricks without straw and replacing the injured Alessandro Del Piero in attack has proved impossible.
Unbeaten in his first six matches at Juventus, his team crashed for the first time yesterday at bottom of the table Empoli even though Filippo Inzaghi and Antonio Conte, being rested on the substitutes' bench ahead of the midweek European encounter, came on in the second half.
The burden on Inzaghi is huge, and United already have cause to remember him. He it was who scored the winner against them in Turin last season although, coming at a moment when United were already set for the quarter-finals, it was of far more importance to Juve.
Since Inzaghi returned this year from weeks away with a groin inflammation, Juve have looked a more effective team. Indeed, he and Conte, the captain and midfielder, have regularly been scoring goals of late for club and country.
Inzaghi put Italy ahead in the opening minute last Saturday in Copenhagen, exploiting an inept back-pass to go round Peter Schmeichel. Conte headed the eventual winner. Last Wednesday, in a drab Italian performance against Belarus, Inzaghi scored from a penalty.
In a previous round of the European Cup, Inzaghi's magnificent volley put Juve ahead in Turin against Olympiakos and Conte scored the second. In the return, in Piraeus, Conte, in the 85th minute, exploited an appalling mistake by the Greek goalkeeper to give Juve a lucky draw.
Inzaghi is motoring at the moment, and even if Jaap Stam is fit to play, United's central defence could be stretched by his speed, opportunism and threat in the air. Parma, until recently managed by Ancelotti, must still be wondering why they let him go. But then, at his behest, they jettisoned Gianfranco Zola.
Inzaghi, 25, was born in Piacenza and began with his local club, for whom his brother Simone, 23, is now playing with success. Yet it took several years for him to make his mark in Serie A. Twenty-eight goals in two Serie B seasons, first with Verona, then back at Piacenza, persuaded Parma to sign him. There, however, he scored only a couple of goals in 15 games and off he went to Bergamo and Atalanta.
A remarkable 24 goals in 33 games made Inzaghi top scorer in the championship, with a club which had no pretensions to the title. So, in 1997, in came Juve. Whom, though, can they now use beside him?
Desperate for goals, they have recently bought two players from abroad. Of these, the Argentinian Juan Esnaider, from Espanol, has been a failure. Thierry Henry of France began uneasily but has since adjusted to look increasingly lively, but he is cup-tied, having played in Europe for Monaco.
So the choice lies between Daniel Fonseca and Nicola Amoruso. Fonseca, the Uruguayan with a famous left foot, shone with Napoli when Lippi was the manager, failed as a striker at Roma, but was redeemed by Lippi and taken to Juventus. There, he began slowly, but recent performances and goals suggest improvements.
Amoruso, 24, is likely to be preferred, however. Indeed, were it not for a sad catalogue of injuries, worst of all the leg he broke last season when he stepped in a hole at San Siro, he would surely have made his mark long since.
To show how unwise it can be to write off players early in their careers, his own has been still more episodic than Inzaghi's. He joined Sampdoria as a teenager, had scant success there, dropped profitably to Serie B with Fidelis Andria and was picked up by Padova.
Fourteen goals in 33 games for such a marginal Serie A team showed his potential, and Juventus signed him in 1996. In his first season there, he scored only four times in 23 games, but there's no doubt about what Italian writers call his "golden feet" - his ability to score important goals with either of them. One of them came last season in the European Cup semi-final in Monaco, when he replaced an injured Inzaghi.
So much, however, will depend on whether Zinedine Zidane recovers from the knee injury he suffered in Greece, to make the bullets for Juve's strikers to fire, though Conte's sudden infiltrations must also be carefully watched by United.
Conte is another whose career has been beset by injury, although he is now in ebullient form. He and the abrasive Dutchman, Edgar Davids, who was sent off again while playing for Holland last Wednesday, maintain a stern challenge in midfield.
But without Zidane, not to mention Del Piero, Juve would always find life hard.
