Inter on Sunday followed up on a positive start in the UEFA Champions League by beating US Sassuolo 2-1 to put their Serie A season back on track.
Federico Dimarco and Carlos Augusto scored Inter’s goals in a largely humdrum encounter at the San Siro which ended with Cristian Chivu’s team creeping into the top half of the table with six points from four matches.
Inter played brilliantly in beating Ajax on Wednesday last week in the Champions League, but losing to a last-gasp goal against fierce rivals Juventus the previous weekend had left the 20-time Italian champions way off the pace in domestic competition.
Photo: Reuters
“It was important to win because we came into the match from two defeats [in Serie A],” Dimarco said. “We had to take the points home with us because we’re Inter, and we did.”
Italy international Dimarco, who loves to attack from fullback, coolly slotted home his first goal of the season from Petar Sucic’s neat layoff in the 14th minute after a sweeping Inter move.
Inter pushed for more, but goalkeeper Arijanet Muric kept the hosts at bay, with two second-half saves from a Pio Esposito overhead-kick and Carlos Augusto keeping Sassuolo in the game.
Brazilian Carlos Augusto’s deflected strike, scored with nine minutes remaining, proved the winner as Walid Cheddira pulled a goal back for Sassuolo seconds later.
Inter’s Davide Frattesi then had a goal ruled out for a tight offside call after the substitute prodded home on the rebound, and Sassuolo could not find a leveler in the six minutes of stoppage-time.
Sunday’s success was a far cry from Inter’s performance last week in Amsterdam, but was enough for Chivu to claim just the fifth win of his short Serie A coaching career.
Lorenzo Pellegrini fired AS Roma to victory in the derby with SS Lazio, the former captain coming in from the cold with the only goal in a 1-0 win at a boisterous Stadio Olimpico.
Roman-born Pellegrini lost the captaincy of his boyhood club and was placed on the transfer list over the summer, but he was decisive against Lazio in his first appearance of the season to fire Roma up to fourth on nine points.
Ahead of kickoff, fans unfurled a banner which read: “Welcome back, captain” as they serenaded Pellegrini, who also had to have surgery on his injured right thigh in May.
“I don’t know what will happen in the future because life is unpredictable... I was close to leaving and I had no idea in what condition I would be after my injury, but I came back in the derby and scored the winning goal,” Pellegrini told DAZN.
Sunday’s 38th-minute strike was Pellegrini’s fourth in a Rome derby and repaid the faith shown in him by new coach Gian Piero Gasperini, who started the 29-year-old in one of Roma’s biggest games of the season.
Gasperini seemed to have frozen out Pellegrini, who has 36 caps for Italy, but on Saturday hinted at a spot in the derby team, while making it clear that the player was on borrowed time unless he “becomes an athlete and starts running.”
After the derby win he doubled down on Pellegrini needing to improve physically as Roma prepare to begin their UEFA Europa League campaign in Nice, France, tomorrow.
Lazio are stuck on three points from their first four matches of the season, but could have easily come away with a point from a typically tense derby, even after losing Reda Belahyane to a straight red card.
Matteo Guendouzi made matters worse for 13th-placed Lazio when he was sent off for a rant at the officials after the final whistle.
One point behind Roma in fifth are Atalanta BC, who reintroduced Ademola Lookman to the action late in a 3-0 win at Torino, a sign of peace after the Nigeria forward tried, and failed, to force a summer move to Inter.
Elsewhere, Como won 2-1 at ACF Fiorentina and the match between US Cremonese and Parma ended goalless.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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