Just after Juventus had pulled off a surprise 3-1 away win against league leaders Lazio on Saturday, coach Carlo Ancelotti was asked about the side's French winger, Thierry Henry, scorer of two of the three Juventus goals.

Would the cup-tied Frenchman not be badly missed at the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin tomorrow night when Juventus take a 1-1 scoreline into the second leg of their Champions League semi-final tie with Manchester United?

"Well, Henry was cup-tied for the first leg at Old Trafford too and we did OK without him then, didn't we?"

Ancelotti's answer says much about the quietly confident mood in the Juventus camp. In what has been a strange season for the reigning Italian champions, their first leg clash with Manchester United represented the final step in a two-month rehabilitation process that began with the appointment of Ancelotti last February, in the wake of the resignation of Marcello Lippi.

For a variety of reasons already touched on in this column (World Cup weariness, the long-term injury suffered by Alessandro Del Piero, Lippi's desire to leave and, last but not least, tensions between Lippi and senior players), Juventus went through a spectacularly negative spell between November and February. That was the period when six league defeats not only effectively eliminated them from the title contest but led many to speculate that the "Old Lady" had come to the end of a winning cycle - at home and abroad.

From the moment of Ancelotti's arrival, however, all has been utterly changed. Not only have experienced players such as Antonio Conte and Didier Deschamps been drafted back into the side but the results have been consistently positive. Juventus have won five and drawn three in Serie A and, much more importantly, they have re-establishing their Champions League credibility.

Your correspondent was at Juventus training on the day of the semi-final draw. The thought of meeting Manchester United for the third consecutive season did not seem to worry unduly senior Juventus players such as Zinedine Zidane and Ciro Ferrara, both of whom cheerfully conceded that the important thing was to still be in the competition at a moment when the team was fast regaining form.

Prior to that first leg at Old Trafford, it was easy to predict that Juventus would offer more serious opposition than the hapless Inter Milan side eliminated by United at the quarter-final stage. The present Inter, currently ninth in Serie A, couldn't win an argument. One suspects that even the Juventus squad were surprised with the quality of their Old Trafford performance. What is certain, however, is that having refound that level of form, Juventus will not now go off the boil. Alex Ferguson may be engaged in an act of wishful thinking when he suggests that Juventus cannot repeat that performance in Turin.

On the contrary, Juventus have been playing at that level, on and off, every spring for the last five years. Which is by way of suggesting that only an Act of God can save United.

This Juventus side is so fit and well it could afford the luxury of resting Zidane for Saturday's away fixture against a Lazio side engaged in a now desperately close title race with AC Milan and Fiorentina. This Juventus side is now riding its luck so well that it could come back from a difficult opening half hour against Lazio to win 3-1.

All occasions certainly do seem to be conspiring against United, called on to do heroic overtime duty in their memorable FA Cup semi-final clash with Arsenal. Juventus appear to have all the winning cards: they are fresher, they have an away goal already in the bag and their key players give them (as amply demonstrated at Old Trafford) a greater range of footballing options than does United's "get-to-the-byeline-knock-in-the-cross" stereotypical British game.

Put simply, Juventus have a lot more class. Juventus to win.