Mixed fortunes for Juventus, Milan

Italian giants AC Milan and Juventus head into the opening week of the Champions League group stages in vastly different moods.

Serie A pacesetters Juve host French champions Bordeaux while Milan face a daunting trip to Marseille, now coached by former Juve midfielder Didier Deschamps.

Milan have good reason to be worried and not just because the French giants have begun their Ligue 1 season well.

The Italians, seven-time European champions, are a team in trouble.

There were ominous signs in pre-season when they lost eight matches out of 11 and although they opened their Serie A campaign with a 2-1 win at Siena, that proved a false dawn.

Milan were then thrashed 4-0 by Inter in their city derby and followed that up with a fortuitous 0-0 draw at promoted Livorno.

Perhaps even more worryingly, though, is that rookie coach Leonardo seems oblivious to his team’s current predicament.

“Now it’s time for Marseille, a team that I know well from my time as a player and who Milan also know well,” he said.

“It’s great when you get matches between two teams, such as ours and the French, with so much history and tradition. We’re very fired up.”

Enthusiasm, though, is not what Milan need, what they need is to start playing well.

Their defence is vulnerable and their attack misfiring, although Deschamps does not want to get too carried away.

“People have to stop saying (Milan are vulnerable). We’re going to have a great team against us with talented international players who are used to these types of matches,” he said.

“It doesn’t make me smile when I hear people say this Milan team isn’t very good. Milan are still Milan.

“You can go through their team one by one, these are international players who are programmed to go far.”

History is not on Marseille’s side as this is a team that have not reached the knock-out stages of this competition since winning the inaugural Champions League in 1993, beating Milan 1-0 in the final.

Milan last won this competition in 2007 and reached the final in 2005 but in their most recent challenge in 2007/08 they went out in the first knock-out stage, beaten by Arsenal.

Things couldn’t be more different for Juventus on the home front as they have won their first three matches and sit top of the table.

New Brazilian signing Diego has also been a revelation, starring in the 3-1 victory at AS Roma a couple of weeks ago.

But he will miss the visit of Bordeaux with a muscle problem picked up during Saturday’s 2-0 win at Lazio.

Until they were relegated to Serie B for match-fixing in 2006, and stripped of two titles, Juve had been the dominant team in Italy for the previous 15 years.

Even without Diego, they can fall back on young Italian prospect Sebastian Giovinco, who shone after replacing the Brazilian on Saturday.

“This Juventus team can go all the way in both the league and in Europe,” he insisted.

Bordeaux coach Laurent Blanc is aware his team is going to have to take their game to the next level if they are to enjoy any success in Turin.

“The staff, the team and the players know that if we want to take anything away from Turin we’re going to have to raise our game, take more risks, try more things and be more disciplined on the pitch,” he said.

Bordeaux will be hoping to do better against Italian opposition than they did last season when Roma beat them home and away.

Juve topped a group including Real Madrid last time out but then fell to Chelsea in the first knock-out round.