MILAN (AP) — Inter Milan moved just one point behind Serie A leader Napoli ahead of their early title showdown next weekend. Lautaro Martínez scored the only goal of the match to help Inter to a 1-0 win over lowly Venezia on Sunday, shortly after Napoli was stunned 3-0 at home by Atalanta. Napoli coach Antonio Conte, who led Inter to the Serie A title in 2021, takes his team to San Siro next Sunday.
Inter has another tough match before that as it hosts Arsenal in the Champions League on Wednesday. It was an entertaining match at San Siro on Sunday and Inter, which knew it could cut the gap to Napoli to a solitary point, had plenty of chances. But Nerazzurri goalkeeper Yann Sommer was also kept busy.
Inter thought it had taken the lead seven minutes into the second half when Federico Dimarco rolled the ball across from the left for Henrikh Mkhitaryan to blast into the roof of the net but it was ruled out for offside. The home side did break the deadlock in the 65th minute in almost identical fashion as Dimarco whipped in another cross for Lautaro to head into the far bottom corner. Venezia thought it had leveled in the seventh minute of stoppage time when Marin Sverko bundled in a cross and the whole of the Venezia bench streamed onto the field in celebration but it was ruled out by VAR for handball.
Despite — or perhaps because of — the absence of the league’s top goalscorer from the starting lineup, Atalanta inflicted what was only Napoli’s second defeat of the s.