Lautaro’s Easter Resurrection: Inter Find Their Spark While Napoli Keep the Pressure On
The Argentine scored twice in his first game for over 40 days, while Napoli are now Inter's main title rivals
Hello and welcome to the Tuesday edition of Goalazzo! Easter is in the books, but the Serie A title race isn’t history just yet.
Inter Milan thrashed Roma 5-2 on Easter Sunday, but Matteo Politano’s late goal last night was enough for Napoli to beat AC Milan and climb above them into second, seven points behind the Nerazzurri.
Can the reigning Serie A champions set up a grandstand finish? It’s difficult, but not impossible. Let’s get cracking.
On the way today:
Lautaro shows Inter what they were missing
Napoli vs Milan
Troubles for Gasp
Welcome back, Benevento!
Lautaro Is Back and So Are Inter
Inter Milan arrived into the weekend contemplating the mortality of their title bid.
Just over a month ago, the Nerazzurri entered the Derby della Madonnina with the chance of opening up a 13-point gap over their city rivals and closest rivals in the race for the Scudetto.
Four weeks later, the visit of Champions League-chasing Roma looked to be a major test for a team that had dropped points in the past three outings and watched its advantage shrink to six points.
Come Sunday night, however, Inter were celebrating their own resurrection as was their captain, Lautaro Martinez.
Making his first appearance since February 21, the Argentine opened the scoring barely a minute into the game.
He finished off a brilliantly worked move to notch his 172nd goal in Inter colours, overtaking Roberto Boninsegna in third place in the list of the club’s all-time top scorers.
Only the legendary Giuseppe Meazza with 284 and Alessandro Altobelli with 209 have scored more than Martinez for Inter.
The Argentine did not have to wait long for his 173rd goal, sweeping the ball past Mile Svilar early in the second half after Inter had sliced Roma open at will.
The Giallorossi’s balloon had already been punctured by Hakan Çalhanoğlu’s stunning strike just before half-time, which had restored the hosts’ lead just minutes after Gianluca Mancini’s equaliser.
Now it completely fell flat, with Marcus Thuram heading in a fourth just minutes after Martinez’s second, before Nicolo Barella made it five shortly afterward.
If Martinez’s return was welcome, so was Thuram’s. The Frenchman had not missed any games, but had looked a shadow of himself without his strike partner alongside him.
Here he assisted both of Martinez’s goals, before grabbing one himself to end a three-month drought.
“He made the difference, just like he always does for us,” the Argentine said of Thuram.
“Everyone has a dip in form sometime - I'm no different. We accept the criticism, but we give our absolute all for Inter, every single time."
Serie A’s top scorer with 16 goals, Martinez has now hit double-digit in the league in every season for Inter, bar his debut campaign in 2018-19.
His return was the perfect tonic for Inter and for Thuram.
"I’ve had a bit of a dip, and I hope it’s behind me now. I missed having Lautaro out there,” the Frenchman said.
“He’s our captain, our key man, and he never stops leading by example.”
If Martinez was the hero on the night, Alessandro Bastoni received an even louder ovation when he left the pitch.
The last two months have been difficult for the 26-year-old, who became public enemy No1 in Italy after diving to get Juventus defender Pierre Kalulu sent off in the Derby d’Italia on February 14.
A week ago, it was Bastoni’s turn to be on the receiving end of a red card in the World Cup play-off against Bosnia. One goal to the good by the time of Bastoni’s sending off, Italy eventually conceded a late equaliser and lost on penalties, missing out on the World Cup for the third consecutive time.
Yet Inter fans still see him as one of their own, as does club president Beppe Marotta.
“It’s shameful that Alessandro Bastoni is being strung up as if he were guilty of who knows what,” he told DAZN.
Cristian Chivu pointed out the defender had put his body on the line after spending the previous 10 days on crutches following an injury he sustained against Atalanta.
San Siro’s ovation for Bastoni only further fuelled the flames of opprobrium among non-Inter fans.
Not that those of a Nerazzurri allegiances will care.
Seven points clear of Napoli at the top of Serie A with seven games left, the Scudetto is firmly Inter’s to lose now.
Alisson’s Cameo Provides Shot of Vitamin V
“Vitamin V, like victory,” was how La Gazzetta dello Sport described Alisson Santos’ cameo against AC Milan on Easter Monday.
“He comes in and destroys, like only he can do, with bursts, turns and dribbles, like his no-look pass to Olivera that leads to the goal,”
Thank God for Alisson, because the Brazilian’s introduction injected much needed vitality into what had been an otherwise awful game of football.
Games between Napoli and Milan down the years have often been classics: think of the legendary Scudetto decider from May 1988, or their meeting in the 2023 Champions League quarter-finals.
When these two collide, the results can often be spectacular. This occasion was not one of them.
For the longest time it looked like Max Allegri was going to walk away with a well-earned point. It was vintage Max, really. Defend deep, hit on the counter.
A victory could’ve been on the cards had it not been for the wasteful finishing of Christopher Nkunku, who hasn’t really got going since signing from Chelsea last summer.
A game between Allegri and Antonio Conte was always going to be incredibly tactical, two of the sharpest minds in modern calcio history.
Battles between the two coaches have been remarkably one-sided, with Conte enjoying five wins from nine games going into this one, with Allegri registering just two victories.
Yet this game felt too cagey, too constrained or, to put it another way, it just lacked in quality.
It meandered along for large parts, neither side really asserting their dominance over the over.
The game only kicked into gear with the introduction of Alisson.
In a week that’s delivered much introspection and soul-searching in Italy amid the fallout of a third consecutive World Cup playoff failure and the state of the game, it was hardly a surprise the difference maker was the most entertaining and quickest player on the pitch.
The one who was fast, direct and can dribble.
The 23-year-old entered the fray with only 20 minutes remaining, but did more than those who’d been on since the start of the game. And it was no surprise he was involved in the eventual winner.
His no-look pass down the left-hand side fed the onrushing Mathias Olivera, who delivered a teasing cross that wasn’t properly dealt with. Matteo Politano, another substitute, smashed in a perfect half-volley on the other side of the box to give Napoli the lead.
Much has been made of the fact that Serie A is a league that sees the least dribbles per-game from the supposed ‘top five’. Moreover, a whole generation of Italian players have been raised without knowing how to perform the action.
The attributes that are most prevalent in the modern game: speed, athleticism and dribbling, are entirely missing from Serie A, and this was evident in Naples.
Alisson ran at Milan players, dared to take them on. This in turn opened up space and caused havoc. Defenders in Italy aren’t used to this kind of player, simply because most of them play elsewhere.
The Brazilian is only on loan at Naples from Sporting, with the option to buy at the end of the season. Surely it’s only a matter of signing on the dotted line as this stage, with or without Antonio Conte.
The Napoli boss has been linked with the Azzurri job in the wake of Gennaro Gattuso’s exit post-Bosnia, and club president Aurelio De Laurentiis has said that if the FIGC come calling, he wouldn’t stand on Conte’s way of returning to the job he held from 2014 to 2016.
Conte, for his part, didn’t reject the idea post-game:
“If I was the FIGC President, I would take me into consideration along with others. For many reasons, I would put Conte in that list,” he said in a bemusing third-person statement.
Conte has another year to run on his existing deal with Napoli, but will sit down with De Laurentiis at the end of the season to discuss the future.
Yet for the here and now, the gap with Inter at the top of the table has been reduced to seven points with seven games remaining. Can they really retain the Scudetto?
“We’ve got to be realistic here. We would need to not make a single mistake, and at the same time hope that Inter slip up more than once,” Conte added.
“Seeing what Inter have done so far, that seems improbable. They are a very strong squad, they deserve all they are doing, and we must try to just keep our foot on the gas.”
Considering Napoli’s injury list has been extraordinarily lengthy all season long, the fact we’re even mentioning the Partenopei in the conversation for a potential title tilt is a credit to Conte and his players.
Yet Napoli keep chipping away at Inter’s lead. Both have relatively easy run-ins, with Como arguably their hardest fixture remaining.
A minor miracle may be needed to turn those ‘4’ murals dotted around the city in honour of the fourth Scudetto into a five.
No matter how the season ends and whether Conte stays or remains, the one thing De Laurentiis should do is seal the deal for Alisson. A player who can light up even the dullest of games.
Just like last night.
Roma Are Drifting Dangerously
Gian Piero Gasperini must be sick of the sight of Inter Milan. The 68-year-old has lost each of his last 10 games against the Nerazzurri by an aggregate score of 26-8.
Prior to Sunday night, Inter had prevented Gasperini’s team from scoring in their last five meetings.
That Roma managed to get on the scoresheet twice at San Siro will have done very little to improve the mood of the 68-year-old, who disconsolately watched from the sidelines as the Giallorossi imploded in the second half.
In the grand scheme of things, defeat against Inter was not as damaging as it could have been, as Como’s draw away at Udinese left Roma four points away from the Champions League places.
But on current form the gap feels like a chasm.
Since squandering a 3-1 lead over Juventus at the beginning of March, the Giallorossi have lost three of their next four Serie A games and got knocked out of the Europa League.
Having conceded just 12 goals in the first 19 Serie A games, Roma have let in 16 in the next 12 rounds.
And while injuries have played a part in Roma’s stuttering form - they were without Paulo Dybala, Wesley, Artem Dovbyk, Evan Ferguson and Manu Kone at the San Siro - there’s more to the Giallorossi’s malaise than a lengthy list of absentees.
As Gasperini admitted, Roma were second-best in every department once Lautaro Martinez put Inter 3-1 up.
"After the third goal, we just lost our heads,” he told DAZN.
“Between their two first-half goals, I saw a lot of good things from Roma.
"Going into the break behind took the wind out of our sails, and that third goal really put us through the wringer.”
If a title tilt never seemed possible even wen Roma were briefly mixing it up with Inter, Napoli and AC Milan at the top of the table in winter, qualification for the Champions League was the target.
It is why Roma convinced Gasperini to leave Bergamo behind and why the Friedkin Group backed him to the tune of €110m (£96m) across the summer and January transfer windows.
This kind of spending will be almost certainly unsustainable unless Roma return to European football’s most prestigious competition for the first time in seven years.
Benevento Are Back
Benevento are back in Serie B, three years after sliding out of the division and into Italian football’s third tier.
A penalty from Francesco Salvemini halfway through the second half was enough for the Stregoni to win the Campania derby in Salerno, while second-placed Catania surprisingly lost at home to Picerno.
The results left Benevento top of Serie C Girone C with a 12-point gap, an insurmountable lead with three games left.
The Giallorossi’s promotion comes as no surprise. Benevento have won more games than anyone else in Girone C and boast the best attacking record and the second-best defensive record.
And yet, it is easy to forget that back in November Benevento were in turmoil after sacking Gaetano Auteri following a 3-0 away in Foggia, which left them third two points behind then-leaders Catania.
The Stregoni rolled the dice, replacing Auteri with academy manager Antonio Floro Flores. In his first senior managerial role, the former Napoli striker won on his debut against Monopoli, but lost his second game in charge to Cosenza.
That proved to be a fork in the road, as Benevento won 15 of their next 17 games and drew the remaining two, an unbeaten run that stretched exactly four months.
Elsewhere in Serie C, Ascoli have drawn level at the top of Girone B with Arezzo after a fifth consecutive win, while the Amaranto have now dropped points in three of their past four outings.
Things You May Have Missed
Juventus’ victory against Genoa was Luciano Spalletti’s 300th in Serie A, making him only the fourth manager in history to reach the milestone after Giovanni Trapattoni with 352, Massimiliano Allegri with 320 and Nereo Rocco with 302.
Dusan Vlahovic suffered a calf injury while warming up against Genoa and “could be out for quite a while,” according to Spalletti.
UEFA president Alexander Ceferin has warned Italy it may not host the Euros in 2032, unless it gets its act together. “Italy’s politicians who should be asking themselves why the country has some of the worst football infrastructure in Europe,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "Euro 2032 is on the schedule and it will happen, but I certainly hope the infrastructure is ready. Otherwise, the tournament simply won't be held in Italy."
Fabio Capello believes it was time for Gabriele Gravina to go. “He’s done the proper thing by stepping aside,” he told Sky Italia. “Was it too late or just in time? That’s beside the point.”
Renzo Ulivieri is not exactly optimistic about the post-Gravina era “Italian football has been in trouble for a long time now - not just recently, but since 2006 - and we'll have to see what happens next,” he said on Thursday. “What needs to be done? That’s a question for those running for office [to be the next FIGC president].”
Juventus and Napoli are top of the Serie A table when it comes to fees paid to agents over the past 12 months. According to figures released by the FIGC - the Italian FA - on Thursday, the Bianconeri paid €32m (£27.9m) to agents over the course of 2025, just ahead of the reigning Serie A champions with €24.6m. AC Milan and Inter Milan are next, paying €22.9m and €20.8m respectively, while Roma round up the top five with a total of €20.7m.
Five years after construction began, the new Curva Sud at Padova’s Stadio Euganeo is finally ready and will be opened against Empoli next week.
The Stadio Euganeo’s new Curva Sud is finally ready, five years after construction began.
