Juventus captain Alessandro del Piero celebrates with a somersault after his stunning free-kick strike against Zenit St Petersburg at the Stadio Olimpicio on Wednesday. Juventus ended a 2-year exile from Europe's premier club competition with a win against the Russian upstarts.Photo: AFP

Juventus marked their return to the Champions League after a two year absence with a hard-fought 1-0 Group H victory over UEFA Cup holders Zenit St Petersburg here on Wednesday.
There was little to choose between the two sides until veteran Italy forward Alessandro Del Piero's swerving 30-yard freekick deceived goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev.
Zenit had more of the ball but failed to take advantage of their chances although their Dutch coach Dick Advocaat vented his fury at Belgian referee Franck De Bleeckere after the game.
"In my opinion he was a little bit impressed by the Italian team," he said wryly.
"But I can understand that, I know how this world works."
Despite the set-back Advocaat was pleased with his team's overall performance.
"I'm disappointed. Today showed that if you don't take your chances, you will lose and that happened in a really Italian way.
"If you saw the game I saw Zenit played the better football but football is about scoring and we failed to do that."
Juve coach Claudio Ranieri showed off his team's attacking strength in depth by restoring Del Piero and David Trezeguet to the starting line up at the expense of Amauri and Vincenzo Iaquinta, who had started at the weekend against Udinese.
Yet despite the weapons at his disposal, he agreed with Advocaat's assessment of the game.
"He's right," he admitted. "We knew we were playing a great team and they proved their worth here.
"It wasn't easy, Zenit were stronger than us physically as they are coming towards the end of their season.
"We weren't fluid, we didn't pass the ball well and we couldn't find the right solution.
"It was very difficult, playing on this (bumpy) pitch was very difficult and because of these difficulties I was delighted with the spirit of sacrifice the team showed."
Zenit had the first clear chance of the match with Danny almost turning home a sweeping move on 11 minutes after Igor Denisov headed Pavel Pogrebnyak's left wing cross back across goal for the Portugal forward, who shot wide with the goal at his mercy.
Minutes later, though, Zenit gave the ball away in midfield and Del Piero almost capitalised, crossing for Trezeguet who disappointingly headed well wide.
Del Piero almost freed his French strike partner in the box on 20 minutes but Trezeguet couldn't quite stretch his leg out far enough to bring the ball under control.
The hosts were gradually getting the upper hand and on 26 minutes Argentine-born Italy midfielder Mauro Camoranesi clipped the outside of the post with a close range header from a Del Piero free-kick.
Pogrebnyak almost bundled his way through late on in what was a largely tepid half but that chance, like most others, was snuffed out.
Zenit visibly grew in confidence after the break and started to see a lot more of the ball with the previously ineffective Andrei Arshavin increasingly getting involved.
They were denied a freekick on the edge of the Juve box when Denisov went to ground a little too easily under a challenge from Momo Sissoko.
But on 56 minutes Arshavin played in Radek Sirl only for Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon to rush out and block the leftback's shot.
Juve started to come back into things, though, as Denmark midfielder Christian Poulsen forced Malafeev into a sprawling save with a flicked header from a Pavel Nedved freekick on 74 minutes.
Just two minutes later came Del Piero's winning strike.
Zenit, who seemed to have missed their chance, had one last opportunity as Arshavin burst past two tackles and into the box but centre-back Giorgio Chiellini stood his ground and stopped the little magician in his tracks.