It was a day of shocks in the Italian Serie A as leaders Inter Milan suffered an embarrassing loss to Udinese at the San Siro. Inter had dropped just two points at home all season, the draw with Torino, but were beaten 3-1 by their excellent visitors
Despite a dominant first half, Luciano Spalletti’s side were undone by Udinese, thanks to a Kevin Lasagna opener, which was cancelled out by Mauro Icardi’s 95th goal for Inter. However, Rodrigo de Paul put Udinese back in front from the spot, after a Davide Santon hand ball in the box was spotted by the VAR.
Antonin Barak scored the third to seal Udinese’s third consecutive win in the league.
“It was a bit unexpected,” Spalletti told Sky Italian via football-italia, moments after the game. “The start of the second half, especially as we’d done well in the first half. We had the right distances, shape and attitude. We didn’t finalise our chances as well as usual, but we created them”.
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Having begun the weekend as leaders, Inter could find themselves as low as third following their loss.
At the Stadio Olympico Grande Torino, Napoli took advantage of Inter’s slip to move top of the league, after a brilliant 3-1 win over Torino.
Kalidou Koulibaly, Piotr Zielinski and Marek Hamsik were the scorers for Napoli, with Andrea Belotti the scorer for the home side.
It was a commanding performance by The Partenopei as they ran into a 3-0 lead at the break. Napoli held on for the win, despite Belotti pulling one back for the host in the second half.
It wasn’t just three points, and a return to the summit for Napoli, but also a record-equalling day for Hamsik, who equalled the legendary Diego Maradona’s goals record for the club.
Hamsik’s goal on the day, Napoli’s third, was the midfielder’s 115th for the club, equalling Maradona’s total.
“It’s nice to know, it’s very pleasing to score 115 goals as a midfielder,” the Slovenia international said. “That’s a good number.
“We are really happy with the performance, because the game could easily have ended with more goals. We’re back to the side we were and that is very important,” he added.
