Piero rockets Juve past Zenit

Juventus marked his return to the UFA Champions League after a two-year absence with a hard-fought 1-0 Group H victory over holders of the Uefa Cup Zenit St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

There was little to choose between the two sides until the veteran Italy forward Alessandro Del Piero's 30-yard esquive FreeKick deceived goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev.

Juve coach Claudio Ranieri showed his team in front of the attacking force to fund the restoration of Del Piero and David Trezeguet in the starting line up at the expense of Amauri and Vincenzo Iaquinta, who had started the weekend against Udinese.

But Zenit took the first clear chance of the match with Danny almost a U-turn home to spend 11 minutes after Igor Denisov headed Pavel Pogrebnyak's left wing cross back across goal for Portugal with interest, which fired with the major objective at its mercy.

Minutes later, however, Zenit gave the ball away in the middle of the field and Del Piero nearly capitalised, crossing disappointing that Trezeguet headed well wide.

Del Piero nearly freed from its French partner strike in the box 20 minutes, but Trezeguet could not stretch quite far enough away leg to put the ball under control.

The hosts were receiving the top in 26 minutes and Argentine-born Italy midfielder Mauro Camoranesi cut outside of the post with a close range header from a Del Piero free kick.

Pogrebnyak almost bundled his way through late in what was a great warm average, but that opportunity, like most others, was snuff. Zenit visibly grew in confidence after the break and began to see much more of the ball with the previously ineffective Andrei Arshavin increasingly involved.

They were denied a FreeKick on the edge of the box when Juve Denisov went to ground a little too easily under a challenge from Momo Sissoko. But in 56 minutes played in Arshavin Radek Sirl only for Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon to leave and lock the left side of the shot.

Juve began to return to things, but, like Denmark midfielder Christian Poulsen Malafeev forced into a save with a long flick header from a Pavel Nedved FreeKick in 74 minutes. Only two minutes later Del Piero's winning strike.

Zenit, which seems to have lost his chance, had one last chance as Arshavin past two tackles and broke into the box, but centre-back Giorgio Chiellini was his ground and stopped the little magician in their tracks.