Fernando Llorente broke his Serie A duck as Juventus pulled three points clear of AS Roma at the top of the tables with a 2-0 win over US Citta di Palermo on Sunday.
Chile international Arturo Vidal broke the deadlock for Juve on 32 minutes when he lashed Carlos Tevez’s smart layoff past Stefano Sorrentino and inside the far post.
Llorente got his head to a corner from the right on 64 minutes to secure the Bianconeri’s seventh win of the campaign following their only slip-up in last week’s 1-1 draw at US Sassuolo.
Photo: EPA
“He’s repaid the faith we’ve all shown in him. We’re happy he’s back scoring again,” Juve coach Massimiliano Allegri said.
“Obviously it’s great to be on the mark again and the fact I scored today has taken the pressure off,” Llorente told Sky Sport Italia.
Juve are now three points ahead of Roma following the Giallorossi’s scoreless draw on Saturday at UC Sampdoria, who dropped to fourth after Antonio di Natale inspired Udinese to a 2-0 win over Atalanta BC on Sunday that sent the northerners the other way.
Elsewhere on Sunday, Gonzalo Higuain ended his league drought for SSC Napoli in style with a hat-trick, including a late penalty, in an entertaining 6-2 win over Hellas Verona in which Marek Hamsik also scored a brace to open his Napoli account this season.
Jose Callejon grabbed the Azzurri’s other goal to claim his seventh of the campaign and go top of the scorers’s charts ahead of AC Milan’s Keisuke Honda and Tevez.
Napoli’s fourth win of the campaign moved Rafael Benitez’s men up to seventh, eight points adrift of Juve and only two points off third-placed Udinese.
Higuain had been goalless in seven previous league outings and his frustration grew earlier this week with Napoli’s 2-0 UEFA Europa League defeat to Young Boys.
Benitez on Friday compared Higuain to a “lion in a cage” and joked after the match: “We let Higuain out of the cage tonight, so we can put him away again until Wednesday” — when they face Atalanta.
Meanwhile, SS Lazio’s resurgence continued with a precious 2-1 win at home to Torino in which Miroslav Klose, making a rare appearance for Stefano Pioli’s side, claimed a 60th-minute winner that moved the Biancocelesti up to fifth.
At the Stadio Dino Manuzzi, a 32nd-minute penalty from Mauro Icardi proved enough for Inter in a precious 1-0 win away to 10-man AC Cesena that will ease the pressure on under-fire coach Walter Mazzarri as the Nerazzurri moved seventh.
In the remaining games, Milan wasted the chance to be third following a 1-1 draw with ACF Fiorentina, while in Verona, Genoa overcame AC Chievo Verona 2-1.
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
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB