AS Roma keep up dogged pursuit, Inter stunned
MILAN (Reuters) - AS Roma maintained their dogged pursuit of Serie A leaders Juventus with a 3-0 win at Bologna on Sunday while Inter Milan's European hopes suffered a setback as they slumped to a 2-1 defeat at lowly Crotone.
Crotone's win was only their fifth of the season and by far the most impressive scalp for the team from Calabria who are playing in the top flight for the first time.
Roma stayed six points behind Juventus who beat Chievo 2-0 on Saturday. Both teams have seven matches to play, including a meeting at the Stadio Olimpico on May 14.
Federico Fazio put Roma ahead from close range in the 26th minute and Mohamed Salah added another before halftime when he latched onto Edin Dzeko's pass and cleverly lobbed the ball over Antonio Mirante.
Dzeko completed the scoring in the 75th minute when he tapped in Diego Perotti's cross for his 24th goal of the season, making him the league's joint topscorer.
Crotone floored Inter with two goals from forward Diego Falcinelli in four minutes midway through the first half.
Falcinelli converted a penalty, awarded for handball by Gary Medel, in the 19th minute and then beat the offside trap to run onto Marcelo Trotta's pass and lob the ball over Samir Handanovic.
Danilo D'Ambrosio pulled one back for Inter in the second half but Crotone held out for an historic win which increased their hopes of pulling off a great escape.
They remain in the drop zone but are just three points adrift of Empoli and safety.
Inter, meanwhile, dropped to seventh and outside the Europa League places, increasing the pressure on coach Stefano Pioli.
AC Milan moved above their neighbours into sixth with a comfortable 4-0 win over Palermo, who are one off the bottom with 15 points and look almost certain to go down.
Fiorentina twice came from behind to draw 2-2 at Sampdoria and Torino's Andrea Belotti scored his 24th goal of the season in the 3-2 win at Cagliari to stay neck-and-neck with Dzeko at the top of the scoring charts.
(Writing by Brian Homewood in Berne, editing by Pritha Sarkar)