Juventus and Roma underlined their title credentials days before Champions League meetings with Atletico and Manchester City respectively as Inter and AC Milan lost precious points in Italy’s Serie A.
Days before travelling to Madrid, Argentine striker Carlos Tevez was the inspiration for Massimiliano Allegri’s Juventus scoring his third and fourth goal of the campaign either side of half-time.
Alvaro Morata headed home a late third with seven minutes left of a match that hinged on a missed penalty — saved by Juve ‘keeper Gianluigi Buffon — by the hosts with the score at 1-0.
Tevez, strike partner Fernando Llorente and influential Chilean midfielder Arturo Vidal were all substituted late in Saturday’s win as the champions look to keep some powder dry for Wednesday.
But Allegri was quick to underline the importance of Tevez, saying the Argentinian “is fulfilling his potential, scoring goals, creating them, working hard, making sacrifices and dictating the tempo.”
Roma’s 2-0 win against Verona thanks to late goals from Alessandro Florenzi and Mattia Destro, who scored from 36 metres, mean Rudi Garcia’s side also remain unbeaten after five games.
Roma on Tuesday face a Manchester City side in dire need of a first Group E win, but the Frenchman was defiant: “We’ve shown we have confidence in our game. We’re ready to handle the challenges when they come, but we have to enjoy this experience and take what we can get from it.”
Although Udinese can close the gap to three points with a win at home to Parma on Monday — Sampdoria moved up to third place with a 1-0 win over Genoa in the city derby late on Sunday — Juve and Roma have left pre-season hopefuls like Milan, Inter and Napoli in their wake.
Fernando Torres started as the lone striker in Filippo Inzaghi’s 4-2-3-1 formation for Milan, but the visitors — reduced to 10 men on 73 minutes when Cristian Zapata saw red — ultimately succumbed to their second successive draw.
“I don’t know if the players were distracted,” said Inzaghi, whose side drew away to Empoli in midweek.
“We had command of the game and created a lot of chances that we should have put away.”
For Milan’s city rivals Inter, it was something of a black Sunday.
Undefeated after four opening games, the Nerazzurri were stunned 4-1 at home to Cagliari, who started the day bottom of the table but finished on a high after seeing Albin Ekdal hit a first-half hat-trick.
While some pundits hailed a tactical masterstroke by wily Cagliari handler Zdenek Zeman, Inter coach Mazzarri promptly offered a mea culpa.
“Today was a black day for us,” Mazzarri told Sky Sport Italia.
“A few players like (Rodrigo) Palacio and (Pablo) Osvaldo are still not at their best.
“But we lacked Cagliari’s spark and enterprise and this is something I take full responsibility for.”
Zeman, a cult figure in Italian football following memorable coaching spells at Lazio, Roma (twice) and Napoli, told Cagliari’s website: “Inter are rightly regarded as one of the league’s top three protagonists, so we came here to play football.”
Ekdal became the first Swede since Zlatan Ibrahimovic to achieve the feat in Serie A. “I was in the right place at the right time,” said Ekdal.
“These are three important points, but we have to keep on working hard if we’re to move up the table.”
Milan and Inter are now seven points off the pace. But as Juve and Roma look towards advancing in Europe, others can only wish what might have been in the knowledge that qualifying for Europe next season is already an uphill struggle.
Napoli failed at the third qualifying round to drop into the Europa League, a reverse which seems to have taken the steam out of Rafael Benitez’s side on the home front.
With only one point from their past three games prior to Sunday’s 1-0 win at Sassuolo, Benitez has been under increasing pressure with reports claiming he could be sacked well before his contract expires in June.
On Sunday Jose Callejon’s first-half strike was enough to hand Napoli a precious win at Sassuolo, but the Partenopei are already eight points adrift of Juve.