A brace from Argentina star Hernan Crespo helped defending champions Inter Milan beat visiting Chievo Verona 4-3 on Sunday to leapfrog Palermo at the top of the Italian Serie A.
Inter fans were only in part pleased by the feat of their heroes, though, as the team incredibly conceded three goals in 12 minutes after going up 4-0 with 20 minutes left.
A furious start brought Brazilian Adriano and Crespo close to scoring and forced two spectacular saves by Lorenzo Squizzi early in the game.
The Chievo keeper delivered one of the game's best performances but could do nothing when Crespo fired an angled left footer on 10 minutes.
Squizzi managed another great save on a smashing shot from Luis Figo but was beaten again in the second half by a Walter Samuel header and by drives from Dejan Stankovic and Crespo.
The game was far from over as Sergio Pellissier pulled one back for the guests, converting a spot kick on 76 minutes, followed by successful efforts by Simone Tiribocchi and, on 88 minutes, Matteo Brighi.
"There is nothing to complain about," Inter coach Roberto Mancini said.
"I am sorry that the defense conceded three goals, because they lost concentration in the final minutes, and these things should not happen," he said.
Tuscany minnows Empoli did Inter a favour by stunning Palermo 2-0, keeping them on nine points. Also on nine points are Roma, who won 4-0 at Parma and lie one point adrift of Inter after four games.
The former frontrunners from Sicily paid dearly for a spot kick miss by Franco Brienza on 25 minutes and fell behind three minutes later, when Empoli striker Luca Saudati nodded past Federico Agliardi.
Nine minutes after the break, Argentinian Sergio Almiron split the defense to make it 2-0 and confirm the frailty of Palermo's defense, which has conceded nine goals in four games.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier