The top two sides continued their early season stroll through the table, and the rest of Serie A was littered with upsets and disappointments in what wound up as a typical Italian weekend full of drama and frustration. Juventus went into the San Siro on Saturday and handled AC Milan easily, with the defending champions riding a late Carlos Tevez goal to victory in a match that they largely controlled. Milan did have some good moments against their old coach Massimiliano Allegri, but Filippo Inzaghi's team could never find a breakthrough against a stingy Juve defense.
Serie A scores, Week 3: Juventus and Roma cruise, other top sides struggle
Juventus and Roma made it look easy this weekend, but Napoli and Inter Milan struggled mightily in the third week of Serie A action.
Sunday was where the real action was, though, with AS Roma bagging two early goals against Zdeněk Zeman's Cagliari side and holding complete control of the match from there. The giallorossi generated a number of threats later on in the match, but miscues and sloppy finishing kept them from piling on, while Cagliari rarely even threatened to score. Their best chance came when Luca Ceppitelli got on the end of a free kick, but he couldn't keep his header on target. In the end, the highlight of the match was unquestionably when Alessandro Florenzi scored in the 13th minute and immediately ran to the stands where his 82-year-old grandmother was waiting with open arms.
The third would-be/should-be title contender in Serie A this season did their best to dispel any notion of competence, as Napoli faced an Udinese side that played poorly for most of the match and still found a way to lose. Of course, they didn’t play particularly well themselves, with a heavily rotated lineup leading to a flat and disjointed display that put very little threat on goal until Rafa Benítez finally started using his substitutes late in the match. That didn’t help yet another example of shoddy set-piece defending, though, as Danilo ran unmarked to latch on to a poor clearance of a free kick and scored to give Udinese a shocking win as Napoli sink even further in to their early-season doldrums.
Inter Milan were hoping to keep pace with the league leaders, but apparently Nemanja Vidić had other ideas, giving the ball away in the box early, which allowed Franco Vázquez to tap in and put Palermo an early lead. That put the hosts off to a flying start, and it wasn’t until late in the first half that Inter looked anywhere near like themselves. Mateo Kovačić was able to continue his strong start to the season with a late goal after snagging a loose ball at the top of the box and blasting it at goal, and then early in the second half it seemed like it was all Inter, all the time as Walter Mazzarri’s side put their full authority on the match. Palermo were able to fight back after bringing on Andrea Belotti, who gave Inter’s back line all kinds of trouble, and had a pair of goals called off for a foul and offsides. The match ended 1-1, but Palermo have to feel very good about the result and how they played.
Elsewhere, Chievo Verona tried to carry on the momentum from their own shock win against Napoli last week, and went up early against Parma before an Antonio Cassano brace in the second half gave way to a 3-2 win for Parma. Cesena and Empoli turned what was a boring start of their match in to an exciting 2-2 duel, and Fiorentina were able to go on the road and edge Atalanta 1-0.
Round 3 Results
AC Milan 0-1 Juventus -- full match report here
Roma 2-0 Cagliari -- full match report here
Udinese 1-0 Napoli -- full match report here
Atalanta 0-1 Fiorentina
Chievo Verona 2-3 Parma
Torino 0-1 Hellas Verona
See More:
