Lazio Narrow Juve's Lead to a Single Point
ROME, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Yugoslav Sinisa Mihajlovic's second minute penalty set Lazio on the way to a 3-1 home win over Bari on Sunday that leaves the Rome club a point behind league leaders Juventus, held 1-1 at home by lowly Cagliari.
Like Lazio, Juve made the perfect start with a first minute goal from Filippo Inzaghi but failed to capitalise and conceded a 13th minute equaliser to Giovanni Sulcis.
The dropped points mean Juventus, three points clear at the start of the day, have 40 points from 19 matches -- just one more than Lazio.
Ukrainian Andrei Shevchenko scored a hat-trick in seven minutes as AC Milan won 3-0 at Perugia to draw level with AS Roma in third-place, five points behind Juventus. Roma were at Milan's neighbours Inter at the San Siro later
on Sunday. Parma slipped to their second successive defeat, losing 1-0 at Bologna to Giovanni Bia's 48th minute goal against his old club. It was Parma's first defeat at Bologna in 13 years. Torino scored two injury-time goals to earn a last gasp 2-2 draw at Venezia while Fiorentina defeated Reggina with a 50th minute winner from Argentine Gabriel Batistuta.
ERIKSSON GETS HIS ANSWER
After several penalty appeals had been turned down in recent matches, even the usually reserved coach Sven Goren Eriksson wondered aloud what it would take for Lazio to earn a spotkick.
After 45 seconds at the Olympic stadium, the Swede was given his answer.
Salas was fouled on Lazio's first attack of the match and referee Tarcisio Serena blew for a dubious penalty. Mihajlovic grabbed the chance to score Lazio's first goal in three matches.
Argentine Nestor Sensini hit the bar with a header before Chilean Marcelo Salas, playing his first match in four weeks, added Lazio's second in the 39th -- shooting into an open goal after Francesco Mancini parried Fabrizio Ravanelli's finish.
Bari briefly threatened a comeback with Gionatha Spinesi's 42nd minute header but Czech Pavel Nedved immediately restored Lazio's two-goal advantage.
"At last we showed the form we were displaying before Christmas," said Eriksson, whose side had claimed just five points in their first four matches of the new year.
Juventus looked set for a straightforward victory when Inzaghi struck in the first minute, but the best defence in Serie A was badly at fault 12 minutes later when Sulcis stole between three defenders to head an equaliser.
The home side laid seige to Cagliari's goal after the break and were unlucky to see an Alessandro Del Piero freekick hit the post and have a Darko Kovacevic penalty appeal turned down.
"We were unlucky today but there will be better days," said Juve coach Carlo Ancelotti.
For most of Milan's match at Perugia, there was little sign that Shevchenko would score once, let alone three times. The ex-Dynamo Kiev striker was guilty of four criminal misses before sliding home his first in the 69th minute off Brazilian Serginho's cross.
Within four minutes, the Ukrainian had beaten the off-side trap and goalkeeper Andrea Mazzantini for his second, before completing his quickfire lesson in goal-scoring with a simple tap-in after Serginho's freekick rebounded off the bar.
Shevchenko's second hat-trick in only his first season in Italy makes him Serie A's leading scorer with 14 goals.
