After reaching the Champions League final by eliminating Barcelona,
Inter Milan will turn its attention back to the Serie A title race
with a match at Lazio on Sunday.
Inter is aiming to stay on course for an unprecedented treble
of league, Italian Cup and Champions League titles. The team is
already at the top of the table, two points ahead of AS Roma, and
the same two sides will meet in the Italian Cup final on May 5.
Inter reached the Champions League on Wednesday night,
despite a 1-0 loss to Barcelona at Camp Nou. The 3-1 win at San
Siro from the first leg meant Inter made it to the final at Real
Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu stadium on May 22.
"It is marvelous," midfielder Wesley Sneijder said. "We are
in the final, which was a dream. We have to enjoy this moment, but
start thinking about the championship again soon, as well as the
Italian Cup. We don't want to let anything slip away."
The hope is that now the team has reached its objective of a
first Champions League final in 38 years, attention can turn back
to the championship, having previously allowed Roma to go top after
closing a 14 point gap.
"There was a very tense atmosphere, but we only thought about
the match," captain Javier Zanetti said. "After the sending off (of
Thiago Motto) the spirit of this squad came through on the pitch.
Right now we have to think about the championship, then we can
concentrate fully on the final in Madrid."
However, Lazio will be no pushovers despite struggling for
most of the season. Edy Reja's team still needs points to avoid
relegation and the team will want to make up for defeat at home in
the Rome derby two weeks ago.
"It will be a tough match against Inter," captain Tomasso
Rocchi said. "It is important and will be very difficult. Inter is
a great team, but we are in good form and coming off the back of
some good results to achieve our aim of avoiding relegation.
"We know that Atalanta can still catch us and so it leaves
everything open," he said.
Asking a favor from its cross-city rival is not something
that Roma would normally contemplate, but that is what it needs if
it is to be back on top at the end of the weekend.
Roma has a chance to move back into first place when it meets
Parma on Saturday, but needs rival Lazio to stop Inter a day later.
Claudio Ranieri's side saw its 24 match unbeaten run snapped
with a 2-1 loss at home to Sampdoria. Roma wasted a number of first
half scoring opportunities after Francesco Totti had put Roma
ahead.
The fear now for Roma is that having exhausted itself to make
it to the top of the table, the players may now be too deflated to
regroup for the final three games and the Italian Cup final.
"They are disappointed," Ranieri said. "But I reminded them
that they have had an excellent season. When I arrived here I asked
for one thing; that they always fight until the end and because
they did we went 24 consecutive games unbeaten.
"(Against Sampdoria) We were 2-1 down and there was 30
seconds left, and we tried to attack again," he said. "The fans
know that we will fight until the end, that we will finish the
season with our conscience in place."
At the bottom of the table there is a key relegation match
between Atalanta and Bologna.
Currently Bologna sits five points clear of Atalanta and a
win would condemn both Atalanta and fellow strugglers Siena to
relegation. However, Bologna has only won once at Atalanta since
1962.
"Of course we have to win on Sunday," Atalanta coach Bortolo
Mutti said. "Then we have to get a result against Napoli and after
that there's Palermo. We will see how we do against these team.
"All the teams we are up against have important objective,"
Mutti said. "It is something that happens Sunday after Sunday. We
are playing teams with big goals and it could count against us."
Also this weekend, it is; AC Milan vs. Fiorentina; Bari vs.
Genoa; Cagliari vs. Udinese; Catania vs. Juventus; Chievo Verona
vs. Napoli; Sampdoria vs. Livorno; Siena vs. Palermo.
