Football: Struggling Milan face progressive Parma

ITALIAN PREVIEW

MILAN ENTERTAIN Parma in tomorrow's live game on Channel 4 at San Siro badly needing a win to resurrect their season. The Italian league champions are out of Europe, slumped to sixth place in Serie A following last week's 3-1 defeat at Juventus and this week Alberto Zaccheroni, their coach, received the dreaded vote of confidence from the club's management.

Milan do not lack for firepower. In the Ukrainian Andriy "King Of The East" Shevchenko, and the German Oliver Bierhoff, they have an awesome blend of pace and aerial power up front.

Parma sold Juan Sebastian Veron, Enrico Chiesa and Abel Balbo to finance the purchase for pounds 24m of Marcio Amoroso, the Brazilian striker who was top scorer in Serie A last term with 22 goals for Udinese. However, while Veron has gone on to better things at Lazio and both Chiesa and Balbo have shone at Fiorentina, Amoroso has had injury problems.

Parma failed to qualify for the Champions' League and initially struggled domestically. However, they have taken 16 points from their last six league games to climb to fourth place in the table, and goals from Marco Di Vaio and the Croatian, Mario Stanic, gave Parma a 2-1 first leg lead over Sturm Graz in the third round of the Uefa Cup on Thursday.

FIXTURES (league positions in brackets): This afternoon: Piacenza (16) v Verona (15). Tonight: Bologna (9) v Fiorentina (10). Tomorrow afternoon: Cagliari (18) v Bari (12); Lecce (13) v Venezia (17); Milan (6) v Parma (4); Reggina (14) v Internazionale (5); Torino (8) v Perugia (11); Udinese (7) v Roma (3). Tomorrow night: Lazio (1) v Juventus (2).