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Serie A: Viola join Juve, Milan and Inter at the top |
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Monday, 22 December 2008 |
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Fiorentina midfield maestro Riccardo Montolivo's goal earned La Viola a much needed away win over Sampdoria to leap into the Champions League zone while Pato led AC Milan to an emphatic 5-1 home win over a hapless Udinese.
Juventus closed the gap to leaders Inter Milan back down to six points after a hard fought 3-1 win at Atalanta yesterday. The pressure was on Claudio Ranieri's team following Inter's 2-1 win at Siena on Saturday, courtesy of a Maicon goal that was clearly well offside.
And Juve themselves also benefitted from poor line officiating as they kept their title hopes alive.
Inter lead on 42 points with Juve on 36 and Fiorentina third on 32 with AC Milan, who host Udinese in yesterday's late match, and Napoli on 30.
Goals from Alessandro Del Piero and Nicola Legrottaglie gave Juve a 2-0 half-time lead but a firm header from veteran Christian Vieri against his former club made things interesting after the break until Amauri settled Juve's nerves late on.
AS Roma's recent resurgence came to an end in Sicily as Catania beat the capital-based side 3-2 thanks to a brace from Japan forward Takayuki Morimoto.
Roma, who came into the game on the back of a five-match winning run in Serie A and eight-game streak in all competitions, were out of sorts for an hour before they found their game.
But by then they were 3-0 down as Davide Biocco opened the scoring on 34 minutes and Morimoto struck on 40 and 56 minutes.
Montenegro forward Mirko Vucinic pulled a goal back with 16 minutes left and French winger Jeremy Menez set up a grandstand finish with a second four minutes after that.
Substitute Stefano Okaka should have stolen a share of the spoils deep into injury time but he was well off target with a close range header.
Fiorentina kept up their Champions League charge with a narrow 1-0 win at Sampdoria courtesy of a goal from Riccardo Montolivo.
However, they were fortunate not to concede a goal in the first half when French goalkeeper Sebastien Frey parried a Gennaro Delvecchio header, seemingly from behind his goal line.
Napoli's faint title hopes came to an end as they fell to a 1-0 defeat at Torino through a second half goal from former Manchester City forward Rolando Bianchi. AFP THIS WEEK'S RESULTS Atalanta 1-3 Juventus
Cagliari 1-1 Reggina
Catania 3-2 Roma
Chievo 0-1 Genoa
Lazio 1-0 Palermo (Sat eve.)
Lecce 0-0 Bologna
Milan 5-1 Udinese (eve.)
Sampdoria 0-1 Fiorentina
Siena 1-2 Inter (Sat eve.)
Torino 1-0 Napoli
SERIE A TABLE Pts P W D L F A
Inter 42 17 13 3 1 31 11
Juventus 36 17 11 3 3 30 13
Milan 33 17 10 3 4 28 18
Fiorentina 32 17 10 2 5 25 14
Napoli 30 17 9 3 5 25 16
Genoa 29 17 8 5 4 24 17
Lazio 27 17 8 3 6 26 22
Catania 25 17 7 4 6 18 20
Atalanta 24 17 7 3 7 21 19
Palermo 23 17 7 2 8 21 21
Roma 23 16 7 2 7 21 23
Udinese 22 17 6 4 7 25 26
Cagliari 21 17 6 3 8 19 21
Sampdoria 19 16 5 4 7 15 18
Siena 19 17 5 4 8 13 18
Bologna 15 17 3 6 8 19 27
Torino 15 17 4 3 10 18 29
Lecce 14 17 2 8 7 14 24
Reggina 13 17 3 4 10 15 33
Chievo 9 17 2 3 12 9 27 |
