Napoli a win away from Serie A title after Inter beats Lazio

Apr 30, 2023, 02:07 pm

ROME -- — Napoli now needs only to beat Salernitana later Sunday to win its first Italian league title since the days when Diego Maradona played for the club.

Lautaro Martinez scored twice and Romelu Lukaku provided two assists as Inter Milan came back from a goal down to beat second-place Lazio 3-1 and set up an opportunity for Napoli to seal it.

The result left Lazio 17 points behind runaway leader Napoli with six rounds remaining after this weekend.

The Napoli-Salernitana game was scheduled to start at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT) and fans in Naples were already celebrating hours before kickoff. The Partenopei supporters kicked their celebrations into another gear with each goal from Inter.

No team has ever clinched the Serie A title with six rounds to spare.

Torino (in 1947-48), Fiorentina (1955-56), Inter Milan (2006-07) and Juventus (2018-19) each won with five rounds to spare to share the record.

Maradona led Napoli to its only two Serie A titles in 1987 and 1990.

Inter defender Francesco Acerbi lost possession to set up an early Lazio goal from Felipe Anderson, with Ciro Immobile also helping out before the Brazilian fooled the defense to set up some space and fire in from the edge of the area.

After numerous chances for Inter, the Nerazzurri finally equalized in the 78th when Lukaku threaded a through ball for Martinez, who scored from the center of the area as he was sliding to the ground.

Lukaku then provided a cross-field pass that Robin Gosens redirected in with an acrobatic volley near the far post — injuring himself in the process.

Martinez scored his second in the 90th after a defensive error.

It was only the second win in seven Serie A matches for Inter, which has reached the Champions League semifinals and Italian Cup final.

Inter moved up to fourth, level on points with fifth-place AC Milan and sixth-place Roma.

------ Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf

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