Juventus all but secured their place in the Champions League next season with a comfortable 3-0 win over Parma at the Stadio Olimpico.

David Trezeguet, Raffaele Palladino and an own goal from Stefano Morrone saw off a poor Parma side, who finished with ten men after Fernando Couto was sent off ten minutes from time.

Parma remain mired in relegation trouble, just a point clear of the drop zone with five games remaining.

The Bianconeri began brightly, and had the fans out of their seats within seconds as Hasan Salihamidzic glanced a header dangerously across the face of goal.

Claudio Ranieri's side were dominating possession, though failed to genuinely test Luca Bucci, until they took the lead in controversial circumstances on 16 minutes.

Mauro Camoranesi's header from an Alessandro del Piero corner came back off the post, and Trezeguet was on hand to tap home from point blank range, though replays showed him to have been in an offside position when Camoranesi struck his header.

There were no arguments about the second goal though, which came on the half hour mark. Palladino beat Damiano Zenoni to the ball on the left flank, and cut in to fire an unstoppable shot beyond Bucci and into the far corner.

Parma, meanwhile, were struggling to create anything in attack, and though Reginaldo did manage to link sporadically with the midfield, Bernardo Corradi remained an isolated figure, unable to escape the attention of the immaculate Giorgio Chiellini.

Meanwhile, Juventus were giving Parma a lesson in passing and movement at the other end, and Zdenek Grygera almost put the game totally to bed after latching onto Camoranesi's cute through ball, though Couto managed to make back the ground to make a vital block.

A minute later the Portuguese centre back blotted his copy book with a cynical fist into the face of Chiellini from the resulting corner - a foul which would in all likelihood have seen his game brought to a premature end had referee Luca Banti spotted it.

Parma replaced the anonymous Corradi with Andrea Gasbarroni at half-time, though Juventus continued to dominate.

Antonio Nocerino and Pavel Nedved both went close, before a large slice of luck brought Juventus their third goal.

Tiago, on in place of Camoranesi, picked up the ball in midfield and clipped a pass toward the back post, only for Morrone to divert the ball with his head over the stranded Bucci and into the back of his own net.

Parma's misery was far from over though, as the creaking Couto was sent off for abusive language towards the referee two minutes later, while the remaining players on the pitch spent the remainder of the chasing the ball to a chorus of olés from the Juve faithful.

Michael FitzGerald / Eurosport