Inzaghi Takes Another Step Toward His 1st Serie a Title as Inter Beats Juventus to Go 4 Points Clear 

(From L) Inter Milan's Dutch defender #02 Denzel Dumfries, Austrian forward #08 Marko Arnautovic, Argentine forward #10 Lautaro Martinez, French defender #28 Benjamin Pavard and Italian defender #95 Alessandro Bastoni celebrate their team's 1-0 victory after winning the Serie A football match between Inter Milan and Juventus at the San Siro stadium in Milan, on February 4, 2024. (AFP)
(From L) Inter Milan's Dutch defender #02 Denzel Dumfries, Austrian forward #08 Marko Arnautovic, Argentine forward #10 Lautaro Martinez, French defender #28 Benjamin Pavard and Italian defender #95 Alessandro Bastoni celebrate their team's 1-0 victory after winning the Serie A football match between Inter Milan and Juventus at the San Siro stadium in Milan, on February 4, 2024. (AFP)
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Inzaghi Takes Another Step Toward His 1st Serie a Title as Inter Beats Juventus to Go 4 Points Clear 

(From L) Inter Milan's Dutch defender #02 Denzel Dumfries, Austrian forward #08 Marko Arnautovic, Argentine forward #10 Lautaro Martinez, French defender #28 Benjamin Pavard and Italian defender #95 Alessandro Bastoni celebrate their team's 1-0 victory after winning the Serie A football match between Inter Milan and Juventus at the San Siro stadium in Milan, on February 4, 2024. (AFP)
(From L) Inter Milan's Dutch defender #02 Denzel Dumfries, Austrian forward #08 Marko Arnautovic, Argentine forward #10 Lautaro Martinez, French defender #28 Benjamin Pavard and Italian defender #95 Alessandro Bastoni celebrate their team's 1-0 victory after winning the Serie A football match between Inter Milan and Juventus at the San Siro stadium in Milan, on February 4, 2024. (AFP)

Inter Milan coach Simone Inzaghi took a potentially decisive step toward his first Serie A title on Sunday.

An own-goal by Bianconeri defender Federico Gatti in chaotic circumstances was enough to hand league leader Inter a 1-0 win in the Derby d’Italia and lift it four points above second-place Juventus.

Both teams were eager to highlight that nothing would be decided at San Siro, with 15 rounds remaining, but Inter has a game in hand — at home to Atalanta on Feb. 28 — and Massimiliano Allegri’s Juventus will now also be nervously looking over its shoulder, with AC Milan only four points behind.

Inter started brighter on Sunday and should have taken the lead in the 25th minute. Hakan Çalhanoğlu played a wonderful, crossfield ball over the top to Federico Dimarco and he crossed for Marcus Thuram, who appeared to be through on goal before a perfectly timed, last-ditch tackle from Bremer.

Juventus went as close at the other end shortly after as Weston McKennie strode downfield before passing to an unmarked Dušan Vlahović but the in-form forward’s first touch was horrible, allowing Benjamin Pavard to get in the block for a corner.

Inter took the lead eight minutes from the break. Nicolò Barella whipped in a cross from the right. Pavard missed the ball with an overhead kick and it went through to Thuram for an attempted diving header but instead it bounced in off Gatti’s chest.

Inter started the second half just as it had begun the first and Dimarco drilled narrowly wide of the post before Çalhanoğlu thumped the right upright.

Juventus also had chances to level in an end-to-end second period and Vlahović's overhead kick went narrowly over the bar.

FIGHT FOR FOURTH

Charles De Ketelaere is finally showing the form that saw AC Milan shell out over 30 million euros ($32 million) on the Belgian youngster.

De Ketelaere never fulfilled his promise at Milan and was loaned to Atalanta for this season. He scored two goals on Sunday to help Atalanta beat rival Lazio 3-1 and consolidate fourth spot.

The 22-year-old converted a penalty in the first half and showed his confidence in the second with a delicious feint past his marker before driving a shot into the bottom near corner to put Atalanta 3-0 up.

That took De Ketelaere’s tally to seven in his past nine matches. He didn’t score at all for Milan last season.

Mario Pašalić scored the opener for a dominant Atalanta side. Lazio was looking to replace Atalanta in fourth but didn’t really get into gear until the final 10 minutes, with Ciro Immobile converting a penalty in the 84th.

It is a tight battle for fourth and Atalanta moved three points above Bologna and four above Roma and Napoli, with Fiorentina and Lazio a point further back.

Napoli kept up the pressure as two late goals saw it fight back to win 2-1 at home to relegation-threatened Hellas Verona, with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia netting the winner three minutes from time.

Diego Coppola had headed the visitors in front in the 72nd but Verona was undone seven minutes later by a former player as Cyril Ngonge — who only left the club last month — saw a shot deflected into the back of the net. Ngonge didn’t celebrate and it later went down as an own-goal by Verona defender Paweł Dawidowicz.

Also, bottom club Salernitana drew 0-0 at Torino.



Piastri Confident McLaren Will Stay Strong All Year

Formula One F1 - Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain - April 10, 2025 McLaren's Oscar Piastri ahead of the race REUTERS/Rula Rouhana
Formula One F1 - Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain - April 10, 2025 McLaren's Oscar Piastri ahead of the race REUTERS/Rula Rouhana
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Piastri Confident McLaren Will Stay Strong All Year

Formula One F1 - Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain - April 10, 2025 McLaren's Oscar Piastri ahead of the race REUTERS/Rula Rouhana
Formula One F1 - Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain - April 10, 2025 McLaren's Oscar Piastri ahead of the race REUTERS/Rula Rouhana

Oscar Piastri has dismissed talk of McLaren being slowed by a rule change in June and says he expects the champions to stay strong all season.
The FIA, Formula One's governing body, will introduce more stringent front wing load tests from the Spanish Grand Prix on June 1 to reduce the permitted level of flex after already addressing rear wings, Reuters reported.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said in Japan last weekend that the change would be significant and there was "an unknown" as to who would be affected.
"We have a big regulation change coming at race nine. You know, how is that going to affect the run of play?" the Briton told Sky Sports television.
Piastri doubted it would make much difference to McLaren, who lead both championships with Lando Norris a point clear of Red Bull's four-times world champion Max Verstappen, the winner at Suzuka last Sunday.
"I'm pretty confident we’ll be strong all year," the Australian told reporters ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, round four of the championship.
"I don’t think it’ll change too much. I’ve not spoken to the team about it massively, in all honesty, which probably tells you enough about that.
"Let’s see when we get to Spain, but we’ve still got a lot of races until then and I think we’ll be a strong team all year round."
Piastri, winner in China after Norris won the Australian opener, said he would rather be driving his car than a Red Bull.
While Verstappen has shown it can be a winner, he is already on his second teammate of the season after Liam Lawson was demoted back to Racing Bulls with Yuki Tsunoda going in the opposite direction.
"Clearly the car looks pretty difficult. We’ve seen that with Liam. We saw it with Checo (Sergio Perez) last year, even with Yuki in Japan," said Piastri.
"I think going into an environment that has been so focused on the way Max drives for nearly 10 years now -- it would be a very tough environment to go into and have immediate success.
"I’m quite happy that I’m driving a McLaren and not a Red Bull at the moment."
Piastri said the McLaren was a tricky car to extract maximum performance from but a lot of the ideas and philosophies were similar to last year.
"If I had to pick out of all 10 cars on the grid right now, I'd still pretty happily be choosing ours," he said.