Bye-bye Vinovo

Last “slog” in Vinovo for Ranieri

. Juventus end their second season at the sport centre today. There's one last training session in the facility before leaving for Genoa, where on Saturday the match against Sampdoria will end the Bianconeri's 2007/08 League season. Then on Tuesday the team will leave for a tour of China and Australia and at the end of May another successful season will officially end.

But one step at a time. First of all Juve must focus on Samp. This will be the Bianconeri's second match without any influence on the final League position, just like it has none for the home team. But Claudio Ranieri wants to see the same Juve he saw against Catania: «Nothing has changed from last week. I want us to give a good impression against a team that has deservedly earned a place in the UEFA Cup. I'll give Buffon a rest, and decide everything else tomorrow. I don't know who will win the top scorer award between Trezeguet and Del Phttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gif
Tambah Gambariero. The important thing is that one of them wins it, but I'd be happy if they both won it together».

Juventus and Sampdoria will play on the Saturday due to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Genoa and will kick off what promises to be a riveting League round, especially due to the fact that the two teams fighting for the title will meet two teams still fighting to avoid relegation. As an outsider, the Manager doesn’t have a vested interest in the results, but he will be egging one of the teams on. «I'm not interested in the outcome Sunday. I simply hope Parma make it. I had a great time with them last year, I'd be happy if they could avoid the drop. And let's hope we can be up there fighting for the title ourselves next year».

Next year: this is the subject the journalists in Vinovo's press room were most interested in today. They wanted to know the team's ambitions, their hopes and especially the names of future Juventus players to be signed this summer. There'll be plenty of time to discuss these things when the Pinzolo summer camp begins, but Ranieri already knows what he wants: «Juventus always have to be contenders. We want to fight for the League title, to do so we will have to close the gap with the other teams even more and we'll have to do this playing in different competitions. Motivation is important and we always have a lot of that. If our fans keep supporting us like they did this year, we'll do even better. I'm happy that Nedved renewed his contract, he's a very important player for us due to the example he gives to the other players».

*juventus.com