Higuain doubles down on Cagliari
Gonzalo Higuain struck his 21st Serie A brace to move into a tie for top spot in the league scoring race in Sunday’s 2-0 win at Cagliari, edging Juventus closer to a record sixth straight scudetto.
Higuain’s 17th and 18th goals of the campaign tied the Argentina striker with Edin Dzeko in the race for the topscorer award.
Bosnian Dzeko missed a penalty before making amends with Roma’s second ina2-0victoryatCrotone,also on Sunday.
Juventus sits seven points ahead of Luciano Spalletti’s Roma, which left Francesco Totti at home for a trip to Calabria where Mohamed Salah provided assists for Radja Nainggolan and Dzeko.
Napoli, 2-0 winner at Genoa on Friday, is third, nine points off the pace ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League trip to Real Madrid.
Juventus returns to Champions League action when it visits Porto on Feb 22, and Massimiliano Allegri’s men have capitalized to further underline their scudetto bid.
Despite Juve’s numerical advantage after Nicolo Barella saw red for a second caution in the 67th minute, Higuain said the triumph wasn’t as easy as it looked.
“Wedidwell,butitwasadifficult match because we just couldn’t get into our stride at the start,” Higuain told Premium Sport.
“Once we broke the deadlock, it started going a lot better, and even more so after their expulsion.”
It was the 24th time in Serie A that Higuain, who also has three hat-tricks, scored multiple goals in a game since arriving from Real Madrid in 2013.
“He’s an extraordinary player. He works hard for the team, and he’s got great fitness,” Allegri told Sky Sport.
“The others are making sacrifices too. Dybala was great today and deserved to score.”
Dzeko went from zero to hero in Crotone. After missing his second straight penalty this season, he bagged his 18th league goal with 13 minutes remaining.
Nainggolan’s fine angled strike off a Salah pass opened the scoring in the 40th minute.
“Next time I will be telling someone else to take the penalty, but it’s not a major problem,” said Dzeko.
“I got my goal in the end and that’s the important thing. Penalties can be missed. It happens.”
Spalletti was all praise for Salah on his full return from the Africa Cup of Nations, where the Egyptian forward lost in the final to Cameroon.
“It was a great comeback match for him, his ball control shone through today,” said Spalletti.
As Juve, Roma and Napoli battle it out for the Champions League qualification places, Inter Milan and Lazio haven’t given up hope of a top-three finish.
Inter overcame Empoli 2-0 at San Siro despite the absence of suspended duo Mauro Icardi and Ivan Perisic and the injured Marcelo Brozovic (toe).
Given Icardi and Perisic have scored 22 of Inter’s 37 league goals this term, Nerazzurri fans had some cause for concern.
However, pre-match fears were settled by Eder’s chested 14th-minute effort before Antonio Candreva sealed the points in the second half with a long distance strike off Eder’s assist.
Inter moved into fourth place, 15 points back of Juve.