ROME – Brief news ahead of this weekend’s matches in Serie A:

AC Milan forward Marco Borriello is set to miss Saturday’s trip to Livorno and Tuesday’s Champions League match at Marseille because of a back problem that will force him to train separately from his team mates for several days.

Dutchman Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is favourite to take his place up front alongside Alexandre Pato this weekend, when coach Leonardo will be looking for a strong response after slumping 4-0 to city rivals Inter Milan last time out.

Midfield enforcer Gennaro Gattuso has an ankle injury but is suspended anyway after being sent off in the derby defeat that left Milan on three points from two games.

Captain Alessandro Del Piero will miss out again on Saturday when Juventus seek continue their perfect start at Lazio.

The club said the forward, yet to have any league action this term, aims to be fit for Tuesday’s Champions League game against Girondins Bordeaux after back and thigh problems.

Zdenek Grygera is unavailable too but full-back Fabio Grosso is poised to make his debut for Juve, after marking his return from a stint with Olympic Lyon by scoring the opening goal in Italy’s 2-0 win over Bulgaria on Wednesday.

David Trezeguet should partner Amauri in attack if coach Ciro Ferrara rests Vincenzo Iaquinta, who was also on the scoresheet against Bulgaria and played in Saturday’s 2-0 win in Georgia.

With in-form Argentine Mauro Zarate and captain Tommaso Rocchi both injury doubts, Lazio coach Davide Ballardini is likely to pair Pasquale Foggia and Julio Cruz in attack.

Lazio also won their opening two games and share the top spot with Juve, Genoa and Sampdoria.

Jose Mourinho may rotate his squad in Inter‘s home game against Parma on Sunday ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League clash with Barcelona.

Midfielders Patrick Vieira and Sulley Muntari, and striker Mario Balotelli are tipped to come into the starting line with Wesley Sneijder and Diego Milito possibly in for a rest after duty with the Dutch and Argentine national teams. Champions Inter and promoted Parma both have four points.

Claudio Ranieri will be without Brazil goalkeeper Doni and full back Cicinho, both out with long-term injuries, in his maiden match in charge of Roma at Siena on Sunday when his side will be looking for their first points of the season.

Tottenham Hotspur pair Jermain Defoe and Harry Redknapp have been rewarded for notching four wins out of four to open their Barclays Premier League campaign by being named the Barclays Player and Manager of the Month for August.

Spurs began the season in fine style, defeating Liverpool at White Hart Lane thanks to a Benoit Assou-Ekotto thunderbolt and Sebastien Bassong’s second-half winner.

This was followed by a Jermain Defoe masterclass away at Hull City, where the England forward’s hat-trick was the highlight of a comprehensive 5-1 triumph.

VIDEO: Redknapp and Defoe on winning awards

Defoe’s scoring form continued as he grabbed the equaliser in the next game, away at West Ham United, with Redknapp’s side coming from behind to win courtesy of Aaron Lennon’s late winner.

The North London club preserved their 100 percent record in August in dramatic fashion, as a last-gasp Lennon winner saw off newly promoted Birmingham City 2-1.

Peter Crouch’s opener was cancelled out by a close-range Lee Bowyer effort before the diminutive winger’s late clincher.

This is the first time that Defoe has won the award. He is the first Spurs recipient of the prize since forward pair Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov jointly scooped the honour in April 2007.

“It’s always nice to get the Manager of the Month award, but it’s all about the players and the staff. They’ve all worked hard for me so it’s a team effort,” said Redknapp.

“He [Defoe] looks, strong, quick, more powerful than he has in the past and it’s paying dividends for him.

“Everytime the ball arrives to him anywhere around the box he looks like he’s going to score.

“It’s a nice feeling to have as a manager.”

Redknapp is celebrating his sixth Barclays Manager of the Month honour, a total surpassed only by Sir Alex Ferguson (with 23) and Arsene Wenger (10).

The decision was made by the Barclays Awards Panel, which includes representatives from football’s governing bodies, the media and fans.

Featuring the likes of Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, Ian Hutchison and Peter Osgood, Chelsea overcame Leeds to win the FA Cup in 1970. In the following season, they clinched the European Cup Winners’ Cup with a replay victory over Real Madrid.

Financial problems meant the Stamford Bridge club dropped into the Second Division, and at one point they were close to falling to the Third Division.

They eventually won their place back in the top flight in 1984, but their stay only lasted four seasons. They clawed their way back to the First Division again as Second Division champions in 1989 and have remained there ever since.

The comfortable victory on a sweltering night at the Estadio Romano in Merida meant Vicente del Bosque’s side qualified as group winners with two matches to spare and eight wins out of eight.

“It was a good day and even if we perhaps weren’t at our best it was enough to secure qualification,” Del Bosque said at a news conference.

The European champions found it difficult to play their usual controlled passing game in the early stages on a cramped pitch at the tiny arena and Estonia created a couple of good scoring chances.

Konstantin Vassiljev skipped past Gerard Pique on the left wing in the 17th minute and sent over a fine cross but Tarmo Kink headed wastefully over the bar before Sergei Zenjov just failed to turn in a centre from Andres Oper.

David Villa fired narrowly over from Xavi’s pass in the 24th minute and Fernando Torres did the same a minute later after a swift break.

Fabregas struck in the 33rd minute when he exchanged passes with David Silva on the edge of the penalty area and stroked the ball past Estonia goalkeeper Sergei Pareiko into the far corner.

WILD CELEBRATIONS

Substitute Santi Cazorla made it 2-0 when he crashed the ball in from close range in the 82nd minute and Juan Mata came off the bench to round off the scoring in added time with a cool finish from Cazorla’s cross-field pass.

Their were wild celebrations at the final whistle and cries of “Espana! Espana!” rang out around the arena.

“We tried to do what we could but Spain were a lot better and that’s the reality,” Estonia coach Tarmo Ruutli said.

“It will be a different story of course in South Africa. There will be a lot of strong teams wanting to win and the World Cup is always a little bit about luck.”

Bosnia’s 1-1 draw with visiting Turkey in their Group Five clash on Wednesday had set Spain up for qualification and the win followed Saturday’s 5-0 thrashing of Belgium.

The world champions, who put on a much improved display compared to recent matches, are now four points clear of second-placed Ireland and with two to play and need just a draw against the Irish in Dublin on October 10 to progress.

Left back Grosso, drafted back into the side after Saturday’s uninspiring 2-0 win in Georgia, opened the scoring after 11 minutes when he volleyed in off the bar following Andrea Pirlo’s delightful dink into the box.

World Cup winner Grosso had played the ball to Pirlo before charging into the area and coolly scoring on his first appearance at his new home ground having signed for Juventus last week.

Striker Iaquinta, another of the seven Juve players to start for Italy, then finished off another neat one-two involving Alberto Gilardino five minutes before the break.

Italy coach Marcello Lippi had come in for criticism for a string of dull performances and was pleased to finally win with style, even though captain Fabio Cannavaro was booked and will miss the Ireland game.

“In the first half it was a spectacle and it was entertainment,” he told Rai television.

“There was a lot of technical quality and two splendid goals. We are not at the top of our game, some other teams are ahead of us but we have controlled the match.”

MORE URGENCY

His side generally had much more urgency and Juve’s Claudio Marchisio did a good job in the problem left midfield spot having seen the birth of his child and recovered from a thigh knock in time to make his second cap.

The defeat means Bulgaria can no longer win the group while they lie five behind Ireland and their chances of grabbing second spot and a playoff place are very remote.

Italy’s most attacking display of the last few months meant the Azzurri left gaps at the back but Bulgaria lacked conviction when it mattered despite having several chances.

The visitors thought the ball had crossed the line when Gianluigi Buffon clawed out Stilian Petrov’s first-half effort following a corner but replays were inconclusive.

Valeri Bojinov also hit the post after a defensive mix-up.

“He has been fantastic. We need a player like him. It is not easy to stop him one-to-one,” Capello told reporters after the Group Six win.

Lennon continued his impressive start to the season for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur with a man-of-the-match display down England’s right side of midfield.

The speedy 22-year-old, who is vying for a wide starting berth with Theo Walcott, David Beckham and Shaun Wright-Phillips, won a penalty for England’s first goal before a great cross set-up Steven Gerrard for a second.

“In my mind Aaron Lennon was always going to be in the first XI against Croatia,” Capello added.

“I saw him in the last game for Tottenham against Birmingham. I also saw him training this week.”

Much time and many other differences separate now from then. Franz John co-founded and built Bayern up from nothing and was delighted with relatively modest results, like Bayern’s 7-1 victory in their first match against their former team, MTV 1879. But John also gave this ‘cavalier’ club its first individual touch.

In the early days, people recognised Bayern, then known as Schwabinger Bayern, by the players’ straw hats. In his turn, Franz Beckenbauer would help make Bayern Munich what it is today: an international club with millions of fans, an institution reaching way beyond German football.

Not in his wildest dreams could Franz John have imagined that future, or that his team would one day be German champions, European Cup Champions and even World Club Championship winners. Nor could he have imagined that nearly a century later, on a mild spring day in 1999, Beckenbauer would meet the world’s leading heads of state, and no less than the British prime minister, Tony Blair, would whisper to him that he was the most famous person there.

Santiago Bernabéu Yeste became President in 1945. Under his presidency, the club, the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and the Ciudad Deportiva were rebuilt following the Spanish Civil War. Beginning in 1953 he embarked upon a strategy of signing world-class players from abroad, the most prominent of them being the signing of Alfredo Di Stéfano and built the world’s first multinational side.

In 1955, acting upon the idea proposed by the French sports journalist and editor of L’Équipe Gabriel Hanot, and building upon the Copa Latina (a tournament involving clubs from France, Spain, Portugal and Italy), Bernabéu met in the Ambassador Hotel in Paris with Bedrignan and Gustav Sebes and created what today is known as the UEFA Champions League. It was under Bernabéu’s guidance, that Real Madrid became established as a major force in both Spanish and European football. The club won the European Cup five times in a row between 1956 and 1960, which included the memorable 7–3 Hampden Park final against Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960. Winning the competition five consecutive times saw Real permanently awarded the original cup and earning the right to wear the UEFA badge of honour. The club won the European Cup for a sixth time in 1966 defeating FK Partizan 2–1 in the final with a team composed entirely of nationally-born players – a first in the competition. It was also runner-up in 1962, 1964 and 1981. The team have also won the UEFA Cup twice and was twice runner-up in the European Cup Winners Cup.

Suffering suspected ligament damage, Genoa midfielder Juric joins injured playmaker Luka Modric, goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa and suspended defender Vedran Corluka on the sidelines.

“It is a big handicap for us, first Pletikosa and Modric were injured and Corluka is suspended,” coach Slaven Bilic told a news conference on Tuesday.

“Still we do not have time to cry about it now. We still have a good team.”

England will qualify for next year’s World Cup in South Africa if they win at Wembley, while second-placed Croatia look likely to be involved in a battle with Ukraine for a playoff spot.

Bilic defended his Brazilian-born striker Eduardo da Silva, who is expected to be given a hostile reception by home fans after being given a two-match ban by European soccer’s governing body UEFA for diving in Arsenal’s Champions League match against Celtic two weeks ago.

“I don’t think that will inhibit his performance,” said Bilic.

“He is a complete man, a complete person. He is great as a player, as a father, as a person. He knows he is 100 percent right and did not dive.”

He also laughed off suggestions that his players would target Wayne Rooney in a physical battle to try and get the striker to lose his temper and get sent off.

“We are not a dirty team,” he replied witheringly.

“If you have been watching us for the last 20 years you will know that.”

ENGLISH PRAISE

He also said his comments at the weekend about the England team, when he said they had lost their “Englishness” and “aggression” under Italian coach Fabio Capello had been misunderstood.

“I praised Fabio Capello and I praised the England team. Of course they have not lost their Englishness. What I said was that they are more organised, more solid, they can control the game almost completely now and are playing a different game,” he said.

“They have won their first seven qualifiers – that is like having three match points in tennis. There are still six months to go before the World Cup and I think they will get better and better.”

Bilic steered Croatia to a 3-2 win over England at Wembley on their last visit in November 2007, a result that denied England a place at Euro 2008.

He is not predicting another win on Wednesday but said the players had watched a DVD of that game in their pre-match build-up.

Despite losing key players, Bilic was still optimistic that Croatia could also reach the World Cup finals next year.

“We are used to going to the World Cup now he said, it would be a big blow to our nation not to qualify,” he said.

England lead the group with 21 points from seven matches, followed by Croatia who have 17 from eight and Ukraine (14 from seven).