TURIN: Juventus and Inter Milan’s top-of-the-table Serie A encounter ended in a 1-1 draw after Inter’s Lautaro Martinez cancelled out Dusan Vlahovic’s goal in Turin on Sunday.

In the 27th minute, Vlahovic broke the deadlock for Juve, receiving a pass inside the box from Federico Chiesa and calmly slotting it into the bottom corner.

Six minutes later, Inter equalised as Martinez made an intelligent run into the box, took control of a cross from Marcus Thuram, and fired an angled shot in at the near post.

The result keeps Inter at the top on 32 points and Juve second on 30 points after 13 matches each.

Chiesa had the first chance of the match for Juve when he received the ball just inside the box only to fire his effort over the bar, and Inter’s Hakan Calhanoglu then narrowly missed the target with a bold long-range strike.

Earlier, Paulo Dybala felt the need to silence the haters after helping to fire Roma fifth with the decisive second goal in a 3-1 win over Udinese.

Dybala rolled Roma into a 2-1 lead with nine minutes remaining at the Stadio Olimpico after being brilliantly flicked through by Romelu Lukaku, with Stephan El Shaarawy then completing the scoring in the final minute.

It was Dybala’s third goal of the league campaign and his first since a brace against Empoli in mid-September, and he put his finger to his lips for the people who “talk too much for no reason”.

Dybala’s strike helped move Roma three points from fourth-placed Napoli, who currently occupy the last Champions League spot, taking advantage of Atalanta and Fiorentina both losing on Saturday to leapfrog the pair.

Udinese are only a point above the relegation zone, with Empoli just inside the bottom three after Sas­suolo’s Domenico Berardi consigned them to a late 4-3 home defeat. Defeat sent Empoli down to 18th, level on 10 points with Cagliari who move out of the drop zone following their 1-1 draw with Monza.

Ilario Monterisi moved Frosinone up to 10th with a 92nd-minute winner against fellow promoted outfit Genoa, who sit 15th after their seventh defeat of the campaign.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2023