Inter Milan rivals given easy start

Inter Milan’s main Serie A rivals AS Roma and city neighbours AC Milan have both been given a great chance to open the new season with a bang, beginning against newly-promoted teams.

Roma host Cesena on Saturday while Milan entertain Lecce on Sunday, in games both sides will be expected to win comfortably.

And for two sides who a year ago stumbled out of the blocks, it is possibly the perfect tonic to launch a bid to dethrone Inter, who have won the last five titles.

Cesena are probably the rank outsiders this season having arrived in Serie A after successive promotions from the third tier of Italian football.

They have not played in Serie A since 1991 and with the exception of newly-acquired Stephen Appiah, the Ghana captain, their team is made up largely of unknowns.

It means Roma will be expected to get off to a flyer and avoid the dire start that befell them last season when they lost their opening two matches and had already dropped to 14 points behind Inter a third of the way into the season.

Roma will have to cope without new signing Adriano, once the most feared striker in Serie A before reported problems with alcohol and depression saw him lose form, shape and motivation and eventually resulted in a move back to his homeland in Brazil.

However, Adriano would have been unlikely to start anyway and Roma will be close to full strength.

Milan also have what on paper looks an easy game against a Lecce side that have been something of a yo-yo team between Serie A and Serie B in recent years.

Like Roma, Milan started badly last season, scoring only six goals in their first nine matches in all competitions, winning just three.

Both Roma and Milan fought back from their poor starts to get into the title race but while the capital based team took Inter to the wire, Milan fell away over the last month of the season.

Both, though, had the problem of playing catch-up, whereas this season the schedule, and Inter’s participation in the European Super Cup, means they could steal a march on the champions.

Inter were due to play Atletico Madrid in Monaco on Friday so don’t start their campaign until Monday, away to Bologna.

While Bologna are a team that have mostly struggled against relegation these last few seasons, they can be stubborn opponents and can call on captain and forward Marco Di Vaio, who only a couple of seasons ago finished second in the scoring charts.

Even though Inter’s game looks tougher than their two main rivals, the champions will probably be one of the sharpest teams in the league at the start having by then played both the Italian Super Cup and European Super Cup, two competitive matches.

The other Italian giant Juventus have the toughest start of the big four as they travel to Bari.

Juve have also had two early season games having played Shamrock Rovers in the Europa League qualifying section.

But they did not enjoy their trip to Bari last season, losing 3-1 during a mid-season collapse in which they lost 5 out of six games from the end of November through December.

Juventus’s early season form will come under scrutiny as they have spent heavily during the off season, bringing in eight new players.

Such a turnover in playing resources, though, always brings with it the risk that the team struggles to gel in the beginning.

Of the rest, Sampdoria, who were knocked out of the Champions League by Werder Bremen on Tuesday, open up with a home match against Lazio while newl-promoted Brescia travel to Parma.

Fixtures:

Saturday

Udinese v Genoa, AS Roma v Cesena

Sunday

Bari v Juventus, AC Milan v Lecce, Chievo v Catania, Fiorentina v Napoli, Palermo v Cagliari, Parma v Brescia, Sampdoria v Lazio

Monday

Bologna v Inter Milan