Napoli edge out Inter Milan to win 4th Serie A title

Napoli clinched their second Serie A title in three seasons after edging Inter Milan thanks to a 2-0 home victory over Cagliari in a dramatic finale to the season on Friday.

It sealed a fourth Italian championship for Napoli, and a record for coach Antonio Conte, who is the first coach to win Serie A with three clubs after earning titles with Inter Milan and Juventus.

“Everyone contributed to this — but the coach most of all,” Napoli captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo said. “Napoli needed him to get back on top. He’s phenomenal.”

Comparing it with his three Serie A titles won at Juventus and one at Inter — not to mention a Premier League title at Chelsea — Conte, 55, said it was “the most unexpected, the most difficult, and the most stimulating in terms of the challenge.”

“It happened again, and it’s something wonderful,” Conte said. “When we got to the stadium, it was honestly difficult to get in, as I don’t know how many people were there.

“I had a slight thought, if we let these people down, it’d be something we carried with us for a long time.”

Napoli led defending champions Inter by one point entering the final round, and it briefly looked as if the title might be staying in Milan in the first half.

Inter took the lead over Como in the 20th minute of a game being played simultaneously to Napoli’s match. But it was Conte’s two big summer signings who ensured the Scudetto headed back to Naples.

Scott McTominay went airborne to redirect a cross from Matteo Politano in the 42nd minute for his 12th goal this season after transferring from Manchester United.

Then, Romelu Lukaku, who was signed from Chelsea in August, controlled a long vertical pass and dribbled past two defenders before scoring in the 51st minute. It was the 14th goal for Lukaku, who has a league-leading 10 assists.

It meant Inter’s 2-0 win at 10-man Como wasn’t enough for the Nerazzurri. Napoli claimed the title by one point to ignite celebrations at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, the stadium named after the man who led Napoli to their first two Serie A titles in 1987 and 1990.

Conte watched the match from the tribune after getting sent off last weekend. But he went to the pitch at the final whistle and embraced Lukaku, with whom he also won Serie A at Inter in 2021.

McTominay dropped to the pitch in tears when the match was done. Minutes later, he was honored as Serie A player of the season.

Napoli players held up signs that read “Again,” featuring a “4” for the team’s fourth title.

Napoli fans began cheering and singing hours before kickoff and celebrated at the final whistle in the stadium and around the city’s central piazzas, which showed the match on jumbo screens.

After the glory days of Maradona faded, Napoli ended a 23-year wait to win the Scudetto when a team led by Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia marched to glory in 2023.

But, after Napoli finished 10th last season, Conte has returned them to the summit of Italian soccer.

Though a handful of coaches have won Serie A with two teams, no one has done it with three — although there is a significant asterisk.

Fabio Capello lifted league trophies with AC Milan (four times) and Roma before steering Juventus to back-to-back triumphs in 2005 and 2006, but the Bianconeri were stripped of both of those titles because of the Calciopoli refereeing scandal.

Conte inherited a team that was coming off a horrible season, having put up one of the worst title defenses in history and churning through three coaches.

Transforming the team back into a title winner arguably ranks as one of Conte’s biggest achievements.

After losing an opener to Hellas Verona, Napoli won eight of their next nine games before winning seven in a row from mid-December through to the beginning of February.

Even the exit of star winger Kvaratskhelia to Paris Saint-Germain in January did not slow Napoli, who had just one defeat since his exit.

In the absence of Kvaratskhelia and Osimhen — who joined Galatasaray on loan last summer — Conte has drawn inspiration from Lukaku and McTominay, while building the most solid defense in Serie A.

Napoli have been aided by failing to qualify for European soccer this season and were knocked out of the Coppa Italia at the round of 16, whereas main rivals Inter reached the final of the UEFA Champions League and the semifinals of the Coppa Italia.

Napoli will now return to Europe’s premier competition, with a big summer potentially ahead to bolster a thin squad.

Inter, who not long ago were dreaming of a treble, will turn their focus to the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain on May 31.

Information from The Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.