Serie A has provided the most excitement at the head of the table of any top-five European league this term, and a dramatic midweek round of fixtures didn’t fail to disappoint.
Napoli move within four points of Juve
Looking at the midweek fixtures, it would seem like the six-point gap between Juventus and Napoli would remain the same as they went into a mammoth weekend clash against each other in Turin this coming Sunday. Both sides were pitted against lower opposition, an away match with Crotone for the Bianconeri, while the Partenopei faced Udinese at home.
Yet the excitement this season is clearly not ready to die, as Max Allegri’s men succumbed to a shock equaliser from their lowly opponents, a 1-1 final result something that very few could’ve predicted. Meanwhile in Naples, Udinese were not ready to roll over versus the title challengers, despite having lost nine games in a row.
Massimo Oddo’s men took the lead twice before the Partenopei pegged them back to 2-2, after which Arkadiusz Milik and defender Lorenzo Tonelli sealed a 4-2 victory and – most importantly – gave his side confidence ahead of that crucial match on Sunday.
“It’s disappointing that we allowed those two goals, but I am happy because I saw the team playing with real sharpness again,” said Sarri to reporters after the match. “Our team always tries to take the initiative and play our football, regardless of venue, opponent or situation. That is our philosophy.
“Clearly, it’s difficult to go to Turin and try to get the victory, as in terms of strength in depth, I think Juventus are the most complete team in Europe. We’ll give it our best shot.”
Lazio triumph in seven-goal thriller
Fiorentina lost for the first time since the death of their Captain Davide Astori on Wednesday night in bizarre fashion as they went down 4-3 at home to Lazio. Goalkeeper Marco Sportiello was sent off for the home side after just seven minutes for handling the ball outside the area, and the visitors were also down to ten men only seven minutes later when Alessandro Murgia hauled down Federico Chiesa in a last-man foul just outside the area.
It was Jordan Veretout who broke the deadlock with the resulting free-kick, a superb curling effort from the former Aston Villa man. VAR was called into question several times throughout the match and confirmed that Fiorentina were correctly awarded a penalty on the half-hour mark, Veretout once again stepping up to convert.
The Viola were struggling to cope with the Lazio attacking forward line, and the Biancocelesti had the scoreline back even with goals from Luis Alberto and Martin Caceres just before the break. However, the Stadio Artemio Franchi went into delirium once Veretout completed his hat-trick after 54 minutes, but the joy of the Tuscan faithful was to be short-lived.
Alberto fired in to make it 4-3 to the visitors 20 minutes later and at this point Fiorentina simply could not find their way back. With the victory Simone Inzaghi’s men keep pace with Roma and Inter for a Champions League spot, but Fiorentina must not be disheartened by the result in their quest for Europe as – aside from some defensive frailty – there were some superb individual performances.
Icardi hits the 25 goal mark
Inter had failed to score in their last three matches but secured a 4-0 win over Cagliari with goals from Joao Cancelo, Mauro Icardi, Marcelo Brozovic and Ivan Perisic at San Siro on Tuesday evening. The second goal was Icardi’s 25th of the season, a career-high for the Argentinian and the first in a Nerazzurri shirt to hit that mark since Zlatan Ibrahimovic did so in 2008/09 and Ronaldo before him during the 1997/98 campaign.
