Del Piero double gives Juventus winning start
Simon Evans
Alessandro Del Piero scored twice as Italian champions Juventus made a winning start to their title defence with a 3-0 victory over Atalanta in Serie A on Sunday.
Last season's surprise package Chievo showed they plan to continue their giant-killing feats with a superb 3-2 win at Lazio while Udinese and Parma drew 1-1.
On Saturday, Roma suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to Bologna while Inter Milan beat Torino 1-0 and AC Milan enjoyed an impressive 3-0 win at promoted Modena.
Those first-day results supported many pre-season predictions that the two Milan sides will be the main challengers to Juve this term but the champions showed they remain the team to beat.
With last season's joint-top scorer in Serie A, French striker David Trezeguet, ruled out with injury, Juventus coach Marcello Lippi gave a debut start to Marco Di Vaio in attack.
But it was his more established strike partner Del Piero who made the difference, putting Juventus ahead with a 27th-minute penalty after he had been brought down by Luciano Zauri.
Del Piero added the second seven minutes later with fine control and finish after good work from Pavel Nedved.
Substitute Salvatore Fresi, making his Serie A debut for Juventus, completed the win with a powerful long-range effort in the final minute.
NO INTENTION
Chievo exceeded all expectations last season with a fifth-place finish in their first ever top-flight campaign and quickly showed they have no intention of fading out of the limelight.
Lazio, with new coach Roberto Mancini in charge for the first time, got off to the perfect start with Argentine Diego Simeone putting them ahead in the fifth minute, hooking in a Claudio Lopez cross at the near post.
But within nine minutes Chievo had drawn level with defender Lorenzo D'Anna thundering in a header from a corner.
The team from a tiny suburb of Verona then went ahead five minutes after the restart with German international striker Oliver Bierhoff producing a neat finish to score on his Chievo debut.
With the game flowing from end to end Lazio striker Bernardo Corradi, making his first appearance since a close-season move from Chievo, scored against his old club with a back-post header to make it 2-2.
As Lazio pushed forward in search of a winner Chievo caught them out with a pacey counter-attack in the 70th minute, Ivano Della Morte racing past Fernando Couto before chipping advancing Lazio 'keeper Angelo Peruzzi to grab the win.
Piacenza's veteran striker Dario Hubner, joint-top scorer in Serie A last season, was on target right away with the decisive goal in his side's impressive 2-1 win at Brescia.
After a dull first half, Jonathan Bachini fired Brescia ahead in the 69th minute but after an equaliser from Colombian Johnnier Montano Hubner struck 11 minutes from the end with a superb shot on the turn.
Udinese came back for a 1-1 draw at home to Parma with Brazilian Alberto cancelling out an early opener from compatriot Adriano.
Reggina, Serie A's only southern team, fell to a 2-0 defeat at Perugia on their return to the top division -- Fabrizio Miccoli and Giovanni Tedesco on target with second-half goals for Perugia.
