Jventus Sweat While AC Milan Swim
July 6, 1999 - 0:0
MILAN Italy's top clubs will be making very different use of the summer sun this week -- with Juventus sweating out their training for the Intertoto tournament while AC Milan lounge around a swimming pool. The new season may be nearly two months away but the stars of the Serie A are already limbering up, albeit in very different ways. Juventus' punishment for failing to secure a place in the UEFA Cup is the back-door route via the Intertoto, which the Turin club will start on July 17 against either Romanian or Bosnian opposition.
Coach Carlo Ancelotti already has 14 players hard at work at their Chatillon training camp in the Italian alps. Another 13, including big name stars like Alessandro del Piero and Zinedine Zidane, will arrive on July 10. And Ancelotti has made it clear there wont't be much of a holiday. The coach's regime means that every hour of the day is allocated -- with the players getting up at 8.00 AM, breakfasting at 8.30 AM, in the for 9.30, lunch break at 1.00 PM, followed by rest until 4.00 PM, training from 5.15PM until 8.15PM, when dinner is served.
All of them must be tucked up in bed by 10.30 PM, or face the consequences. Ancelotti has a lot of personal credibility riding on the coming season. The 40-year-old inherited the team from Marcello Lippi last February and despite improving their league form, failed to achieve anything. Now he must prepare a largely second-string side for the Intertoto, caught between club officials' demands for a UEFA Cup place and the need to avoid burning out his best players too early in the coming season.
"We're going to be running risks," he admitted. "Because our preparations are not geared to the intertoto but to the serie a championship. We're not snubbing anything or anybody and we know that we'll be facing teams who could cause us problems. But the risks have to be weighed up." Milan's major worry is whether their players are enjoying the luxury Sardinian hotel complex and swimming pool enough.
(AFP)
Coach Carlo Ancelotti already has 14 players hard at work at their Chatillon training camp in the Italian alps. Another 13, including big name stars like Alessandro del Piero and Zinedine Zidane, will arrive on July 10. And Ancelotti has made it clear there wont't be much of a holiday. The coach's regime means that every hour of the day is allocated -- with the players getting up at 8.00 AM, breakfasting at 8.30 AM, in the for 9.30, lunch break at 1.00 PM, followed by rest until 4.00 PM, training from 5.15PM until 8.15PM, when dinner is served.
All of them must be tucked up in bed by 10.30 PM, or face the consequences. Ancelotti has a lot of personal credibility riding on the coming season. The 40-year-old inherited the team from Marcello Lippi last February and despite improving their league form, failed to achieve anything. Now he must prepare a largely second-string side for the Intertoto, caught between club officials' demands for a UEFA Cup place and the need to avoid burning out his best players too early in the coming season.
"We're going to be running risks," he admitted. "Because our preparations are not geared to the intertoto but to the serie a championship. We're not snubbing anything or anybody and we know that we'll be facing teams who could cause us problems. But the risks have to be weighed up." Milan's major worry is whether their players are enjoying the luxury Sardinian hotel complex and swimming pool enough.
(AFP)