Lazio and Napoli catch up as Juventus falter
MILAN: A 2-0 home win over Atalanta boosted Lazio’s Serie A title ambitions after champions and leaders Juventus were held to a 1-1 draw away to Parma on Sunday.
Lazio began the second half of the season trailing Juve by five points but sealed their 13th win of the campaign thanks to goals from Sergio Floccari and a Davide Brivio own goal.
With Juve settling for a share of the spoils after Nicola Sansone levelled Jonathan Biabiany’s earlier own goal, it left Vladimir Petkovic’s side just three points adrift in second with a two-point lead on Napoli.
Inter Milan had leapfrogged Napoli into third thanks to a 2-0 home win over Pescara on Saturday, but Napoli re-established order with a convincing 3-0 home win over Palermo.
Internowsit fourth, seven points behind Juventus but three clear of Fiorentina after La Viola suffered a shock 3-1 defeat at the hands of on-form Udinese.
A week on from their 3-0 home rout over Inter, Antonio Di Natale scored his second consecutive league brace as Udinese claimed their seventh win of the campaign to move one place up to eighth.
AC Milan, meanwhile, were left in seventh place after escaping from Sampdoria with a scoreless draw instead of claiming the win that would have allowed them to leapfrog Roma into sixth.
The Rossoneri struggled to get into their stride at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium, with the club’s top scorer, Stephan El Shaarawy replaced by Robinho halfway through the second period.
Elsewhere, Cagliari moved out of the bottom three at the expense of Genoa after sealing a 2-1 win over the visitors thanks to Daniele Conti’s 82ndminute winner.
Only days ago Petkovic had claimed Juve already have one hand on the title, but Lazio are now the champions’ closest challengers.
“Our win was deserved, although we played far better in the second half than in the first,” said aid Petkovic.
“But if we want to have higher ambitions, we e need to be more constant throughout.”
At Parma, both sides missed scoring chances before Pirlo’s free-kick from just outside the area took a deflection off the head of Biabiany and wrong-footed goalkeeper Antonio Mirante in the 52nd minute.
But a dummy blunder by Mirko Vucinic gave ave Parma the chance to level, Argentine defender der Gabriel Paletta pouncing to send Nicola Sansone one through to outpace Juve defender Martin Caceres res before beating Gianluigi Buffon with a low, wellplaced ellstrike.
Juve coach Antonio Conte later admitted: “On Parma’s goal, I take the blame. I called for Vucinicc to dummy, but Paletta is good at anticipating and he managed to send the ball through to Sansone.”
After their shock home defeat to Pescara last ast week, Fiorentina were there for the taking byy a Udinese side which is currently on fire.
Fiorentina took the lead at the Stadio Friuli when hen Gonzalo Rodriguez rose above the defence to smash ash a header off the crossbar and into the net via the head of goalkeeper Zeljko Brkic.
But Di Natale levelled from the spot for the hosts osts and then broke through the Viola defence to beat eat Norberto Neto for a 14th league goal which put him second behind Napoli’s Edinson Cavani’s Serie Aleading AHero: tally of 16.
Udinese confirmed their superiority barely a minute later when Colombian striker Luis Muriel beat Neto with a right-foot strike.