Welcome to Eurosport-Yahoo!'s live coverage of the Serie A clash between Sampdoria and Juventus at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris!

Lucchini is stretchered off the field with an ice pack on his face. What a bruising encounter this has been already!

Stefano Lucchini clashes in mid-air with Amauri and ends up on the deck. There are claims that Amauri led with an elbow on the Samp defender.

Leonardo Bonucci blocks a cross and clears. Some optimistic appeals for handball from Samp's players, but the referee is rightly not interested.

Now Amauri is off the field receiving treatment for something. The last thing Juve need is to lose him too.

By the way, Del Piero had to pull out of this match at short notice because of a bout of flu. Simone Pepe will instead support masked striker Amauri.

Juve substitution: Troare must have picked up a knock in that incident too, becuase he is being replaced by Fabio Grosso after less than three minutes.

Daniele Mannini has gone down after overstretching for the ball while tussling with Armand Traore. After taking a moment to recover he is back on his feet.

The mach is underway!

The players are lined up in the tunnel now. When these two sides met back in September we were treated to a thrilling 3-3 draw. Will we get a repeat peroformance today?

Both of these clubs have lost their star forward this January. Antonio Cassano has joined Milan after his absurd row with the club's hierarchy resulted in his contract being cancelled, while Juve's top scorer Fabio Quagliarella suffered a serious knee injury in the 4-1 home defeat to Parma, the first Serie A match of 2011. Who will cope best?

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Five of last the seven league meetings between Sampdoria and Juventus have finished as draws. Samp boss Domenico di Carlo has won only one of his six previous matches against Luigi del Neri. The Juve boss has come out on top four times, with one draw. (Opta)

Juve keeper Gigi Buffon makes only his second start of the season after returning from injury in last week's much-needed win over Bari. Amauri set to wear a facemask to protect a broken nose. The striker will be forced into action given Juve's crippling injuries and the lack of a new arrival upfront after Udinese's Antonio Floro Flores opted to join Genoa earlier in the week and interest in Diego Forlan and Luis Fabiano cooled.

Federico Macheda makes his first start for Samp, having laready made two late substitute appearances since making the loan move from Manchester United.

SAMPDORIA (4-4-2): Curci; Zauri, Volta, Lucchini, Ziegler; Mannini, Palombo, Poli, Guberti; Pazzini, Macheda /// JUVENTUS (4-4-2): Buffon; Motta, Bonucci, Chiellini, Traoré; Krasic, Sissoko, Aquliani, Marchisio; Pepe, Amauri.

Inter's defeat at Udinese in the lunchtime kick-off means that move up to third with a win in Genoa. Samp can only move up one place to nnth as the gap between the top half and the rest begins to open a little.