Serie A: Juventus wins 13th straight; Higuain scores again for Napoli
MILAN (AP) — Napoli and Juventus extended their club record winning streaks to maintain their Serie A title challenges on Wednesday, while Hellas Verona finally recorded its first victory of the season.
Gonzalo Higuain netted his 23rd goal in as many league games to help Napoli win at Lazio 2-0, and match the club record of seven successive league victories, set in 1987-88.
Juventus extended its run to 13 successive victories by beating Genoa 1-0 to remain two points behind Napoli.
Fiorentina is six points further back after Mauro Zarate's stoppage-time goal snatched a 2-1 victory over Carpi.
Fourth-place Inter got back to winning ways by beating Chievo Verona 1-0, while AC Milan continued where it had left off in Sunday's derby win with a 2-0 victory at Palermo with Carlos Bacca and M'Baye Niang both on the scoresheet again.
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At the other end of the table, Verona beat 10-man Atalanta 2-1 to end its worst streak; it was its first win in 23 matches. Verona's worst negative streak before this year was 13 matches without a win in 1989-90.
Verona is 10 points from safety after 17th-place Sampdoria drew 2-2 against Torino.
Second-from-bottom Frosinone also won, beating 10-man Bologna 1-0.
Empoli rescued a 1-1 draw against Udinese.
Higuain is in the form of his life and had scored nine in five Serie A matches against Lazio so it was no surprise when he opened the scoring midway through the first half.
He gathered Jorginho's ball over the top, played a swift one-two with Jose Callejon and fired past Lazio goalkeeper Federico Marchetti at the second time of asking.
Callejon got on the scoresheet himself three minutes later, beating the offside trap to run onto Lorenzo Insigne's marvelous ball over the top and chip Marchetti.
The match was temporarily suspended midway through the second half because of racist and discriminatory chanting from the Lazio fans.
In Turin, the only goal of the game came after half an hour when Juan Cuadrado dribbled into right side of area and his cross was deflected in by Sebastien De Maio.
There was bad news for Juventus as defender Patrice Evra went off injured in the first half and Martin Caceres was stretchered off in tears in the second.
Juventus forward Simone Zaza was shown a straight red card in stoppages for a dangerous tackle on Armando Izzo.
Inter started 2016 top of the league but had slipped down the table following a run of two draws and two defeats, including Sunday's humiliating 3-0 loss to bitter rival Milan in the derby.
Chievo had let in four goals in each of its two previous matches and Inter dominated, but couldn't find the breakthrough wasting a number of chances, as well as being denied by an excellent Andrea Seculin - who was making his top-flight debut.
Mauro Icardi broke the deadlock minutes after the interval, slotting into the near side of the net for his 50th goal in 109 Serie A matches.
