Senad Lulic... Lazio’s trump card in the big matches.

Tonight, Juventus and Lazio will bring the curtains down on the 67th Coppa Italia as they face each other in the final at the Olympic Stadium.

Juventus won their most recent of nine Italian Cups in Marcello Lippi’s maiden season with the club in 1994/95. That was a memorable campaign for the Bianconeri who won the Serie A title and were also UEFA Cup finalists, going down 2-1 on aggregate to Parma in an all-Italian final.

Even though tonight’s match will be played in Rome, Juventus are hot favourites to beat Lazio and keep their winning trend going ahead of next month’s Champions League final against Barcelona in Berlin.

Juventus were the Coppa Italia beaten finalists on five occasions – in 1972/73 (vs Milan), 1991/92 and 2001/02 (twice vs Parma), 2003/04 (vs Lazio) and in 2011/12 (vs Napoli).

This season they found little resistance in retaining the Italian league title for a fourth year running.

Unlike the last few years, they have also done very well in Europe this time, reaching their first European final since 2003.

Perhaps, Juve’s biggest disappointment so far was losing the Italian Super Cup to Napoli, after a penalty shoot-out, in December, in Doha.

En route to reaching their 15th Coppa Italia final, Juventus overcame Verona 6-1, Parma 1-0 and Fiorentina 4-2 on aggregate.

After the semi-final first leg in Florence, Fiorentina had emerged favourites to reach the final for the second successive year following a 2-1 win in Turin. However, in the return leg, Juventus played like true champions and cruised to a comprehensive 3-0 win.

Lazio showed significant progress this season after finishing in a disappointing ninth position last year.

Unlike Juventus, Lazio entered the cup competition from as early as the third round, knocking out fourth tier team Bassano 7-0 in August.

In the next round, Lazio eliminated Varese, bottom in Serie B, with a 3-0 win at home.

However, it was from January onwards that Stefano Pioli’s side finally started coming under the spotlight with back-to-back away wins over Torino (3-1) and Milan (1-0).

In the semi-finals, Lazio could only manage a 1-1 draw at home to holders Napoli. But a late strike by Senad Lulic gave Lazio a 1-0 win in the return leg in Naples that guaranteed their place in tonight’s showdown.

The 29-year-old Lulic, a Bosnia international, is not one who scores many goals. However, the former Young Boys midfielder seems to leave his best for the big occasions as in the 2013 final he also scored the all-important goal that enabled Lazio to claim their sixth Coppa Italia at the expense of city rivals Roma.

With two games to go, Lazio are third in the Serie A with 66 points, just one behind Roma with whom they will cross swords in the league next Monday.

Second place in Serie A means participation in the Champions League group stages, thus avoid playing in the third qualifying round.

Direct encounters

In their league clashes with Lazio this season, Juventus showed they were the better side, winning 3-0 in Rome and 2-0 in Turin.

At present, no fewer than 17 points separate the champions from Lazio in the Serie A standings.

Besides Juventus, Udinese (1-0), Napoli (1-0), Genoa (1-0) and Inter (2-1) have all emerged from the Olympic Stadium with the three points this season. However, anything can happen tonight, particularly in a domestic cup final.

Lazio, who will be without midfielder Lucas Biglia, will seek to win their third Italian Cup in seven years, following their successes of 2009 and 2013.

On the other hand, Juventus will try to win the Coppa Italia for a record 10th time, thus keeping alive their dream of becoming only the second Italian team, after Inter of 2009/10, to complete the treble.

The Italian Cup final was originally scheduled to be played on June 7 but was moved forward as a result of Juventus reaching the Champions League final.