The Italian Serie A will have a cracking derby on Saturday, Juventus vs Roma. Both sides have been in pretty good form lately: Juventus are 5th after being held to a draw at Brescia in midweek but they won at AC Milan a fortnight ago while Roma have won the derby against Lazio last week and also beat Fiorentina 3-2 on Wednesday. After a poor start to the season Roma found their feet and moved up the table in sixth place.
Defending champions Inter Milan will meet their title rivals from last season AS Roma on Sunday but this time the two teams are far from last year's glory days. Inter beat Bari in the last league game and are now in third place, seven points behind leaders AC Milan, while Roma are down in fifth place, nine points off the pace.
Italian side AS Roma will meet Ukrainian champions Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday in the first leg of the Champions League first knockout round. Roma suffered an important defeat at home last weekend as they were beaten 2-0 by Napoli but they might have a slight advantage over Shakhtar who played their last official game against Braga in the Champions League last December. The Ukrainian league will re-start in March after a long winter break.
Shakhtar pulled off a surprising result in the first leg by winning 3-2 so most likely Roma will have to win by two goals in Donetsk to qualify. In the meantime Roma sacked coach Claudio Ranieri and replaced him with former player Vincenzo Montella and the results have improved as the Giallorossi are unbeaten in the last three league games.
