AC Milan won 2-1 at Fiorentina to stay top of Serie A on Sunday despite striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic being sent off for his second match in a row.
First-half goals from Clarence Seedorf and Alexandre Pato put AC Milan in command before Juan Vargas pulled one back and Ibrahimovic, returning from a two-match ban following his red card at Bari, was dismissed.
Napoli won 2-0 at Bologna to keep up the pressure on Milan and there was more drama at Palermo, who conceded two stoppage time goals against 10-man Cesena to draw 2-2 in coach Delio Rossi’s comeback barely a month after he was sacked.
Lazio’s 2-0 win over Parma moved them into the Champions League qualifying round spot and Luca Toni struck a late winner to give Juventus a 3-2 win over Genoa.
Milan have 68 points from 32 games, three more than Napoli, with Inter a further two behind in third place.
Napoli made the most of slack defending as Giuseppe Mascara and Marek Hamsik, from a penalty, scored in the first half at Bologna.
That win briefly pulled them level with Milan as they attempt to win their first title since 1990.
Milan quickly went about restoring their lead at the top in the evening game when they scored in the eighth minute at Fiorentina, Dutchman Seedorf volleying in from Pato’s headed pass.
Pato added the second four minutes before the break, finishing off a slick break involving Ibrahimovic and Kevin-Prince Boateng.
Ibrahimovic could have sewn it up, but twice sidefooted wide from good positions after the re-start before Vargas scored with a deflected shot in the 80th minute.
The Peruvian scraped the crossbar two minutes later, then Ibrahimovic was given a straight red card for remarks made to a linesman, but Milan held on.
Lazio moved into fourth place thanks to goals in either half from Hernanes and Sergio Floccari.
Palermo’s rollercoaster season continued against Cesena as Rossi returned to the hot seat, replacing Serse Cosmi who was sacked just a month and five games into the job following last Sunday’s 4-0 hammering by Catania.
Rossi was given another chance despite club president Maurizio Zamparini saying he had ruined the team following a 7-0 home defeat by Udinese which led to his sacking.
Palermo raced to a 2-0 lead in only 36 minutes thanks to goals from Jasmin Kurtic and Mauricio Pinilla.
Cesena’s troubles deepened when Steve von Bergen was shown a red card for a foul in the 74th minute and Paolo Sammarco was ordered from the substitutes bench as Cesena protested.
Marco Parolo pulled one back in the second minute of stoppage time before Emanuele Giaccherini equalized with virtually the last kick of the match.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
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