Genoa, Italy – Carlos Tevez scored the only goal of the match for Juventus in his first league action as the defending Serie A champions opened the season with a 1-0 victory over Sampdoria at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris.
Juventus, the two-time league champions, essentially coasted to another title last campaign by finishing with a robust 87 points, nine clear of second-place Napoli.
But Juve struggled against Sampdoria last season as the Genoa club won both fixtures against the champions.
After a scoreless opening 45 minutes, Juventus found the only goal of the night with a fantastic passing sequence that culminated in a low cross into the box from the left flank by Paul Pogba that Tevez easily tapped home for his first goal of the domestic campaign.
Sampdoria struggled to create many quality scoring chances as the club managed just one shot on target and things got worse for the hosts in stoppage time when Paolo Castellini was shown a straight red card and sent off.
Juventus was then able to see out the final moments and collect its first three points of the season.
Hellas Verona 2, AC Milan 1
Verona, Italy - Luca Toni scored on either side of the interval on Saturday as Serie A newcomers Hellas Verona made a big splash on the opening weekend with a 2-1 defeat of AC Milan at the Stadio M.A. Bentegodi.
AC Milan opened the scoring 14 minutes into the match as Andrea Poli corralled a pass from Mario Balotelli and deposited his shot calmly into the bottom right corner.
But Hellas Verona answered back on the half hour mark when Toni got on the end of a corner kick from Romulo and headed it home to put the sides on level terms at the break.
Toni completed his brace in the 53rd minute in much the same fashion as his first tally when he found himself on the end of a cross from Bosko Jankovic and nodded it past Milan goalkeeper Christian Abbiati to secure three points for his club.
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