Juventus defender Stephan Lichtsteiner says the Italian football champions musn't underestimate Carpi whom they face in a Serie A contest at the Stadio Alberto Braglia here on Sunday.
The hosts, promoted to the top flight for the first time in their history at the end of last season, are finding life tough in Italy's premier division and currently occupy the penultimate spot in the Serie A standings.
In spite of this, Carpi have displayed their ability to mix it with the big guns this season, with a midweek Coppa Italia away win over Fiorentina a key sign of their potential to pull out all the stops when required.
As such, Lichtsteiner claims fourth placed Juventus will be taking nothing for granted as they aim to see out 2015 in style with all three points this weekend. They trail league leaders Inter Milan by six points after 16 weeks of the competition. Fiorentina and Napoli are second and third respectively on 32 points. AS Roma are fifth with 29 points.
"We've got the opportunity to make it seven Serie A wins in a row but seeing as Carpi have upset the odds by taking a point off Napoli and knocking Fiorentina out of the cup, we must be aware that it could a potential banana skin for us," Lichtsteiner told juventus.com on Saturday.
Another potential spanner in the works comes in the form of the unusual 12.30 CET kick-off time, but Lichtsteiner says the Bianconeris need for points and the wealth of experience possessed by the squad mean there will be no excuses in Modena.
"We need to prepare for it as we do every game. The kick-off time doesn't work in our favour, seeing as we're used to playing in the evening.
"But as we're playing catch up we can't allow ourselves to drop points. I'm not worried though because we're all professionals who are capable of dealing with this scenario," the Switzerland international added.
