Reigning champions Juventus beat Parma 2-0 and Serbian Stevan Jovetic gave Vincenzo Montella a winning start as Fiorentina boss.

Life without Alessandro del Piero started with the Turin side wining thanks to second-half goals from Stephan Lichtsteiner and Andrea Pirlo.

The match was surrounded in controversy, at first Juve were given a penalty for a foul on Lichsteiner in the 33rd minute, despite him being in an offside position. Arturo Vidal saw the resulting spot kick saved by Parma keeper Antonio Mirante.

Lichsteiner finally broke the deadlock in the 54th minute, and four minutes later there were more problems when Parma’s keeper failed to hold Pirlo’s soft free-kick, the ball spun towards the line, Mirante was sure he had prevented the ball from crossing the line but the officials gave it as a goal.

In the season opener Montella’s new look side beat Udinese 2-1 thanks to a late goal from Jovetic, Maicosuel had given Udinese the lead in the first half, but the Serbian stars two second half goals gave the Tuscan club the three points.

The rest of the fixtures were on Sunday, Milan hosted promoted Sampdoria, the home side’s fans had seen stars Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva join PSG and would have been hoping for a win but ended up losing 1-0 thanks to an Andrea Costa header in the 59^th minute.

A new look Inter side won 3-0 against Pescara, with goals from Wesley Sneijder, Diego Milito and Philippe Coutinho. Roma were almost shocked at home by Catania but sub Nicolo Lopez managed to stay calm to score an excellent 90^th minute equalizer.

City rivals Lazio managed to beat Atalanta 1-0 after Hernanes 18^th minute goal, meanwhile in Sicily, Napoli beat Palermo 3-0 thanks to goals from Marek Hamsik, Christian Maggio and Edinson Cavani.

Siena drew 0-0 with promoted Torino, despite it being the first day of the season that means they are on -5 points after the summer’s betting scandal.

Scott Balaam

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