Champions Juventus restored their three-point lead at the top of Serie A on Saturday with a 2-0 win at struggling Empoli, while rivals AS Roma slumped to a 2-0 defeat to a rapidly improving SSC Napoli.
In Saturday’s late game Inter were stunned 2-0 at Parma, a result which moved the hosts off the bottom of the table and heaped further pressure on Nerazzurri coach Walter Mazzarri.
Andrea Pirlo and Alvaro Morata got the goals for Juve in the space of 11 second-half minutes in the first meeting between the two sides since 2008.
Photo: EPA
Pirlo opened the scoring with his first goal of the season, a sweet free-kick which dipped over the wall and past Davide Bassi into the Empoli goal.
Former Empoli player Claudio Marchisio then hit the woodwork before ex-Real Madrid star Morata made it 2-0 with a left-foot curler.
After a first defeat of the season away to Genoa in midweek and with Tuesday’s Champions League Group A clash at home to Olympiakos on the horizon, Juve coach Massimiliano Allegri welomed the morale-boosting win.
“It was important for us to get back to winning ways on the road, especially after the Roma result,” Allegri, who rested both Carlos Tevez and Fernando Llorente for the trip to Empoli, told Sky Sport.
Sebastian Giovinco partnered Morata up front and Allegri added: “Giovinco had a decent performance, he had two or three chances and showed good movement, considering it is the first time he and Morata have played together up front.”
“We needed to rest a few of the other players and they both put in a good shift,” Allegri said.
Earlier, a spectacular early strike from Gonzalo Higuain and a late Jose Callejon goal handed Napoli a precious 2-0 win over title challengers Roma that moved Rafael Benitez’s men up to third.
Napoli and Roma met at Napoli’s San Paolo Stadium for the first time since the death of 31-year-old Ciro Esposito, a Napoli fan who was killed by a hardline Roma “ultra” on the fringes of the Italian Cup final last May.
About 600 police were deployed in and around the stadium, but the drama was played out exclusively on the pitch as Napoli dominated from the outset to rubberstamp their return to form following a difficult start to the season.
“I’ve said for a long time we need to take it one game at a time. I don’t deserve the credit for this win, it’s all down to the players,” Benitez told Sky Sport.
Napoli bossed the entire first half and Higuain gave the hosts a three-minute lead with an acrobatic bicycle kick that beat Roma ’keeper Morgan de Sanctis from inside the area.
It was the Argentine’s fifth goal inside a week, with Higuain having scored a hat-trick last weekend in a 6-2 win over Verona and one from the penalty spot in a 1-1 draw away to Atalanta in midweek.
Higuain set up Callejon for Napoli’s second five minutes from time.
“Napoli were the strongest. The best team won,” Roma coach Rudi Garcia said. “At the start we got our approach all wrong. In the first half we hardly won any of our tackles.”
Garcia admitted Roma had suffered a “mental problem.”
“It’s the first time it’s happened, but we have to make sure it’s the last time,” he added.
Callejon’s goal was his eighth of the campaign and left the Spaniard at the top of the league scoring charts.
However, Garcia was not the only Serie A coach lamenting his side’s psychological state as Inter continued to stumble when it came to winning a third consecutive game under coach Mazzarri.
Their defeat to Parma, courtesy of a brace of goals in either half from former Juve midfielder Paolo de Ceglie, left Mazzarri scratching his head.
“If I have to sum it up, we never manage to make the required leap in quality. We have to work on that,” Mazzarri said.
Having climbed up toward the European places last week, Inter are now ninth and again 10 points adrift of Juve before the remainder of the weekend’s fixtures.
SSC Napoli’s Italian Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale with closest rivals Inter just one point behind. The hosts remain top with 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier on Sunday, with two rounds remaining. To make matters worse for Napoli, midfielder Stanislav Lobotka, struggling with an ankle injury, was forced off just minutes after the match began. Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got
A stunning Lamine Yamal strike on Thursday helped crown Barcelona La Liga champions with a 2-0 win over local rivals RCD Espanyol, with victory ensuring Real Madrid cannot catch them at the top of the table. Yamal’s effort and Fermin Lopez’s goal took Hansi Flick’s side seven points clear of Los Blancos with two matches remaining, to clinch Barcelona’s 28th title and complete a superb domestic treble. Only the UEFA Champions League title escaped an exciting young Barca side this season, as they won the league for the second time in six years, at Espanyol’s ground again just as in 2022-2023. Back then,
Jannik Sinner on Thursday marched into the semi-finals of the Italian Open after destroying Casper Ruud in straight sets 6-0, 6-1, while Coco Gauff won a marathon three-set battle with China’s Zheng Qinwen to advance to the women’s singles final. American Gauff is to face Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in today’s title match after pulling through 7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 7-6 (7/4) in a match that lasted over three-and-a-half hours. Ruud was supposed to be Sinner’s toughest test in Rome since he came back from his three-month doping ban, as the Norwegian came into the match in hot form on clay after winning in
Shohei Ohtani on Thursday delivered his first two-homer game of the season and had six RBIs as the Los Angeles Dodgers poured it on with five long balls in a 19-2 victory over the visiting Athletics. Max Muncy, Andy Pages and James Outman also hit home runs for the Dodgers, who left no doubt by taking a 13-2 lead following a seven-run third inning. Muncy and Kim Hye-seong each had three hits for Los Angeles. Dodgers right-hander Matt Sauer led off a bullpen game by allowing two runs in four innings. Left-hander Justin Wrobleski (1-1) finished with four scoreless innings after he
RSS