Football
Ben Gladwell, Italy correspondent 10y

Allegri Milan return will be 'emotional'

Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri will make his return to the San Siro in September, the fixtures for the 2014-15 Serie A season have revealed.

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Former AC Milan coach Allegri begins life as Antonio Conte's successor at Juve with a trip to Chievo Verona when the season opens on the weekend of Aug. 30-31.

Udinese are then his first guests at the Juventus Stadium -- and a week later he is back in Milan to face his old club.

"It's going to be emotional to meet Max again," Milan general manager Adriano Galliani told Sky Sport Italia after the fixtures were announced. "He's coaching the champions of Italy because he's a great coach."

Juve's first midweek match of the season sees promoted Cesena arrive in Turin before they make a short trip to Atalanta and are then visited by last season's runners-up Roma.

Meanwhile, Milan open against Lazio and travel to Parma before hosting Juve. They then have four easier fixtures -- in theory at least -- against Empoli, Cesena, Chievo and Hellas Verona before hosting Fiorentina.

Galliani said: "We thought we had an easy start last year and then we lost in Verona. This time, we've got a tough opening with Lazio and then Juve."

The first derby of the season is between Genoa and Sampdoria on matchday five, followed on matchday 12 by Milan-Inter, with Juventus-Torino a week later.

The Rome derby takes place on matchday 18, when Roma host Lazio, and they visit the Stadio Olimpico on the penultimate weekend of the season.

That same weekend - May 23/24 -- will see Juventus travel to Napoli for what could also be a crucial game in terms of the destination of the scudetto.

Milan host Torino that weekend, and coach Filippo Inzaghi warned rivals that their poor preseason campaign would be irrelevant once the league campaign started.

A 3-0 defeat to Olympiakos in the U.S. was followed by a 5-1 hammering by Manchester City, but Inzaghi told Gazzetta dello Sport: "We'll emerge from it.

"It's going to be a completely different story in the league, but it's clear for all to see that we need to improve lots of things."

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