In February 1999, Ancelotti was appointed Juventus manager, where he both succeeded and preceded Marcello Lippi, who returned to the club when Ancelotti left. With Juventus, Ancelotti became less rigorous with the team's formation, abandoning his favoured 4–4–2 in order to accommodate star French playmaker Zinedine Zidane in his preferred free role behind the forwards in the team's starting line-up. His first full season at Juventus began promisingly, as he immediately won the Intertoto Cup with the club by beating Rennes 4–2 on aggregate, although Juventus suffered a round of 16 elimination in the UEFA Cup, and lost the league title to Lazio by a single point on the final match-day of the season; this was after surrendering a five-point lead with three games remaining, which drew strong criticism from the fans and the board of directors. The following season, Ancelotti went trophyless, finishing runner-up in Serie A yet again, to Roma, and he was sacked by Juventus. Ancelotti's dismissal was announced by Juventus at half-time in the final league game of the season at home against Atalanta, on 17 June 2001, even though they were still within a chance of winning the title; Juventus won the match 2–1, although the result was not enough to prevent them from finishing behind Roma in the league. Ancelotti finished his tenure with Juventus with a record of 63 wins, 33 draws and 18 losses.