The champions found a win from nowhere to heap pressure on Napoli, whose hopes were left in tatters at Fiorentina

Fino alla fine. Until the end. Those three words were chosen by Juventus supporters to be printed on the club’s shirts in 2014, a snippet borrowed from a terrace chant (‘fino alla fine, forza Juve’) and which became a team slogan. Elsewhere they might tell you that it’s not over until the fat lady sings. In Italian football, it ends when the Old Lady wins.



There was a moment on Saturday when Juve’s season appeared to be unravelling. One week after losing at home to Napoli, the champions found themselves a goal down away at 10-man Inter in the Derby d’Italia. There were fewer than five minutes left, and anything less than a win would grant the Partenopei an opportunity to overtake them at the top.



In no way did a comeback feel inevitable. If anything, Juventus looked broken. They had blown an early lead despite playing with a one-man advantage from the 17th minute. Matias Vecino was initially booked for his stamp on Mario Mandzukic but then, rightly, sent off after a VAR review.



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Juventus were 1-0 up when it happened. But rather than press their advantage, they let Inter back into the game. Mauro Icardi was granted freedom of the penalty area to head home an equaliser from a free-kick. Then Andrea Barzagli bundled in an own goal. Before our eyes, history was unravelling. After six consecutive league titles, the Bianconeri were coming apart at the seams.

And then, suddenly, they weren’t. In the 87th minute, Juan Cuadrado breezed past a stumbling Davide Santon and fired the ball across goal. It deflected off Milan Skriniar and into the far corner. Before the game could even reach injury time, Juventus scored again: Gonzalo Higuaín heading home a Paulo Dybala free-kick from close range.



Not for the first time this season, Massimiliano Allegri was made to look like a prophet. He had cut a defiant, if angry, figure in the wake of defeat by Napoli, reminding reporters “in football, everything can change in a minute”.



Persuading players to internalise that concept has perhaps been his greatest success at Juventus. This season alone, we have seen this team conjure victories out of nowhere on multiple occasions. It is enough to think about how Higuaín and Dybala turned a Champions League tie on its head against Tottenham at Wembley, or how the younger forward conjured three points out of nowhere after Juventus were utterly outplayed by Lazio in Rome.

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For all of this team’s mental fortitude, however, Saturday’s victory can only be viewed through the prism of two diabolical decisions – one by Luciano Spalletti, and another by match officials.

The Inter manager withdrew Icardi to send on Santon with five minutes remaining. The full-back lost Cuadrado on the equaliser, but just as damaging was the shift in Inter’s approach. For so long, their 10 men had carried the game to Juventus. Now, with their chief scoring threat withdrawn, they invited their opponents on.

“The substitutions were wrong,” acknowledged Spalletti afterwards. He knows the implications are severe. Defeat, combined with wins for both Rome clubs, left Inter four points outside the Champions League places with three games left. Failure to qualify might cost him his job, and could also spell the end of Icardi at Inter as well. The striker was a picture of impotent desolation as he watched the final act from the bench.



Even so, Spalletti could justifiably lament that his team had been hard done by. The disparity was glaring between the decision to send off Vecino and the failure to punish Miralem Pjanic for what looked like an evident second yellow card offence when the score was 1-1. The Juventus midfielder clattered into Rafinha knee-and-elbow-first, just yards from referee Daniele Orsato. Here, there would be no VAR review.



A technology that was introduced in part as an antidote to late-season polemics has instead simply added a fresh layer. VAR would play its part, too, in the crucial second act of this weekend’s drama.



The Scudetto race was still very much alive as Napoli arrived to face Fiorentina at the Stadio Artemio Franchi. A win for the visitors could cut the gap back down to one point, and Juventus still had a daunting away fixture to come against Roma.



But then Kalidou Koulibaly was sent off after five minutes. A hero one week earlier, when he scored Napoli’s winner in Turin, the defender was guilty here of a clumsy challenge on Giovanni Simeone as the Fiorentina forward dashed into the box. Initially, the referee gave a penalty and a yellow card. After consulting the replay, those became a free-kick and a red.

Unlike Inter, Napoli were unable to keep up the fight with 10 men. Maurizio Sarri’s decision to immediately withdraw Jorginho ought to be questioned, as the player most capable of exerting control and slowing the game down, but a team that had already been showing signs of exhaustion in recent weeks was perhaps always doomed under the circumstances.



Simeone put them to the sword with a brilliant hat-trick – the first of his career. So much for the naïve hope of some Napoli fans that Fiorentina, whose hatred of Juventus burns brightly, might somehow stand aside. The Viola have their own season objectives to pursue, with a place in Europe still achievable, and there was no note of dissent from the stands as they revelled in this win.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fiorentina’s Giovanni Simeone celebrates his hat-trick. Photograph: Alberto Lingria/Reuters

Sarri refused to discuss referees or VAR afterwards. The decision to send off Koulibaly was correct, the defender denying a clear scoring opportunity, but reporters nevertheless tried and failed to draw the Napoli manager by contrasting with Pjanic.



None of which could stop fans from seething. A spectacular, improbable and endlessly entertaining title race appears to have arrived at a premature close. Juventus can now afford to lose at Roma and still claim a seventh consecutive Scudetto as long as they win at home against Bologna – who sit comfortably in mid-table – and a Verona team who will almost certainly have been relegated before they meet on the final weekend.

Allegri will no doubt remind his players that the narrative can still change, that titles can just as easily be thrown away in a minute as they can be won. But after six consecutive Scudetti, they might not even need to be told.



Talking points

• Chievo are most certainly not Liverpool, but it feels necessary to observe that Roma won by a margin that would suffice to see them through to the Champions League semi-finals if they could reproduce it on Wednesday. There has been less good news with Diego Perotti unlikely to recover from his ankle sprain, and Kevin Strootman doubtful with rib damage.

• Defeat dropped Chievo into the relegation zone, where they join Verona, who lost 3-1 at home to Spal. Unlike their neighbours, the Flying Donkeys do at least still have hope. Only three points separate them, in 18th, from Udinese in 14th.

• The Europa League chase is similarly tight, Atalanta and Sampdoria cruising to big home victories while Milan ended their six-game winless run.