Napoli go top of Serie A after Juventus drew with Inter

Source:Xinhua Published: 2013-9-15 9:18:23

Napoli beat Atalanta 2-0 at home to go top of Serie A after Juventus were held to a 1-1 draw by Inter at the San Siro stadium on Saturday.

Mauro Icardi scored his first goal for Inter midway through the second half to break the deadlock, but Chilean midfielder Arturo Vidal equalised for Juventus with his 20th league goal for the Turin giants.

Inter head coach Walter Mazzarri was pleased with his side's performance and content enough with the point against Juventus.

"We played on a par with a consolidated team, especially in the first half. After the break we even pushed for the victory, which is a big leap in such a short space of time together," he said.

"I was interested in seeing this Inter. We had done very well against Genoa and Catania, but with all due respect they are not Juventus and I wanted to see how we' d approach this game," he said.

Juventus head coach Antonio Conte believed that the draw showed Inter have the credentials to fight for the Scudetto with Juventus this season.

"We confirmed today that Inter can target the top of the table this season, while Juventus are very tough to beat," he said.

"I saw my team play very well in a difficult arena against a side that has everything to compete right to the end, as they don' t have European commitments and therefore will have better fitness levels," he said.

Rafael Benitez's Napoli were made to work hard for the points before the resilient Atalanta, and they had to wait until the 71st minute when Gonzalo Higuain found the net. Three minutes later, the visitors' hopes of equalising evaporated once Luca Cigarini was sent off for his second bookable offence.

Jose Callejon then wrapped up victory late on to extend Napoli's 100% winning start to the season.

AC Milan came from two goals down to draw 2-2 at Torino, and Mario Balotelli denied the hosts first win over the Milan side in 12 years with the last kick of the game.

Danilo D'Ambrosio opened the scoring for Torino two minutes after break, before Alessio Cerci doubled their lead in the 71st minute.

Sulley Muntari pulled one back in the 88th minute, and then Balotelli, who had cut an anonymous figure through 90 minutes in Turin, stole the headlines by converting a penalty four minutes into stoppage time.

Milan head coach Massimiliano Allegri admitted his side' s defence "is not good enough," but hailed their belief to come back from 2-0 down.

"Four minutes from the end we' d lost this, but the lads did well to believe. Torino played well, caused us a lot of problems and we left ourselves too open to their counter-attacks," he said.

"Alessio Cerci and Ciro Immobile had a good game in attack, while it was clear they could run at us and use their technique against our defence," he said.



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