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Rome football fans celebrating as Lazio go top of Serie A

SoccerNews in Serie A 28 Sep 2008

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It was a great day for Roman football fans on Sunday as Lazio went back to the top of the table with a 3-1 win at Torino and AS Roma coasted to a 2-0 home success over Atalanta.

Lazio have been the surprise team of this season and their fourth victory in five matches took them ahead of Inter Milan and back to the top of the table, for a few hours at least.

Inter can regain top spot if they win the Milan derby against AC Milan later on Sunday.

Macedonia striker Goran Pandev gave Lazio the lead on the half hour following some shoddy defending by the hosts.

Former Birmingham forward Mauro Zarate tried to bundle his way through the backline, who were all drawn towards the Argentine but the ball bobbled free to the unmarked Pandev who shot shot home past Matteo Sereni.

Torino did not lie down, though, and Elvis Abbruscato produced a moment of magic moments later that came within a whisker of levelling matters, but although his delicate chip beat Juan Pablo Carrizo in the Lazio goal, it came back off the crossbar.

Serie A top scorer Zarate sealed the win on 63 minutes, beating a man and then firing a stunning shot from 25 yards that curled away from Sereni and into the top corner.

He then added a penalty seven minutes from time after Sereni had been harshly judged to have fouled Christian Brocchi in the box.

Sereni was also ridiculously sent-off, though, and Torino lost their discipline with Francesco Pratali also seeing red late on.

However, the nine men scored their consolation deep into injury time through a re-taken Nicola Amoruso penalty, that was also harshly awarded.

In the capital, last season's runners-up AS Roma were desperate for three points having had a poor start to the season that saw them win only one of their first four matches.

They welcomed back French defender Philippe Mexes to partner Christian Panucci at centre-half but there was only a place on the bench for club captain Francesco Totti.

Panucci opened the scoring after 17 minutes with a goal from a corner that went in via a deflection.

Then on 31 minutes French winger Jeremy Menez played a ball in from the left that took two deflections and wrong-footed the defence, allowing Montenegro forward Mirko Vucinic to turn sharply and fire home smartly.

Napoli proved that having their fans banned from travelling to support them is no hindrance as they moved up to second with Argentine forward German Denis scoring a late winner in a 1-0 success at Bologna.

Udinese are third as goals from Fabio Quagliarella and Simone Pepe shot them to a 2-1 victory over Siena, whose reply came from Houssine Kharja.

The northerners are level on 10 points with Inter in fourth and Catania in fifth after the Sicilians enjoyed a 1-0 success against newly-promoted Chievo.

Rock-bottom Cagliari are still searching for their first win of the season following a 2-0 defeat at Lecce.

On Saturday Juventus were held to a boring 0-0 draw at Sampdoria while Alberto Gilardino was the hero as Fiorentina won 1-0 at home to Genoa.

Juve remain unbeaten but have dropped to sixth in the table while sorry Sampdoria are still searching for their first win of the season after four draws and a defeat.

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