Serie A: Napoli Win 1-0, Top of the Table Competition Gets Hotter

(X/@sscnapoli)

JAKARTA - Napoli won a narrow 1-0 victory over Cagliari in the continuation of Serie A at Unipol Domus, Saturday. Scott McTominay's single goal was enough to secure three points and lift Napoli to second place in the standings.

Napoli now has 62 points and managed to leapfrog AC Milan who will only play on Sunday, March 22 early morning. Meanwhile, Cagliari is stuck in 15th place with 30 points after suffering their third consecutive defeat.

The early goal came in the second minute. McTominay scored from a corner situation that started with a short pass from Matteo Politano, before the loose ball in the penalty box was hit by the Scottish player in front of the goal.

After the goal, the match was quite balanced even though it wasn't too neat. Napoli coach Antonio Conte was seen getting upset with a pass from Alessandro Buongiorno and Billy Gilmour that made the ball easy to grab.

Napoli had the opportunity to add through Politano's free kick, but it was still too weak to seriously threaten. On the other hand, Cagliari almost equalized through Sebastiano Esposito who fired from a narrow angle, but the ball just passed in front of Vanja Milinkovic-Savic's goal.

In the second half, the intensity increased. Kevin De Bruyne almost scored a goal with a hard shot from outside the penalty area, but was successfully blocked by goalkeeper Elia Caprile.

Napoli also showed a slick combination of play through the cooperation of McTominay, De Bruyne, and Politano, but Caprile was again alert to thwart the close-range opportunity.

Cagliari tried to catch up, but failed to break their bad streak of never winning after falling behind in the first half of the season.

Udinese Win, Climb to Top 10

In another match, Udinese won 2-0 at home to Genoa at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium.

Udinese's goal was scored in the second half through a header from Jurgen Ekkelenkamp in the 66th minute, before being closed by Keinan Davis' goal in the 90+6 minute.

This result brings Udinese up to 10th place in the standings with 39 points, while Genoa is stuck in 13th place with 33 points.