Juventus' hopes of catching Serie A league leaders Inter Milan suffered a major blow yesterday when it lost 3-2 at home to Cagliari.

Had it won Claudio Ranieri's side would have closed to within three points of Inter, but now Jose Mourinho's side can widen the gap to nine points when it takes on Torino today.

Worse still, if AC Milan also wins, Carlo Ancelotti's team will leapfrog Juventus into second place.

Inter top the table with 49 points, Juventus are second on 43 and AC Milan lie third with 41.

"Cagliari had a great game, a very good game. You could see from what they did against Inter Milan (1-1 draw) and Lazio (4-1 win) that they would give us a lot to worry about," Ranieri said.

"We've only given away five games at home, so our defense is better than this. We need to watch (the match) and then discuss it. We shouldn't have given away two goals when we were leading 2-1," he added.

In form Cagliari, which hasn't lost since returning from the winter break, took the lead against the run of play on 16 minutes when Davide Biondini headed in Michele Fini's cross at the far post.

Mohamed Sissoko brought the home side level on 31 minutes, heading in Alessandro Del Piero's corner.

On 38 minutes Juventus took the lead when Pavel Nedved picked up a weak header to shoot low past Federico Marchetti to give Juventus the halftime lead.

Cagliari equalized on 54 minutes. Andrea Cossu was released on the left and Jeda reached his cross to score his eighth goal of the season.

The winner came on 78 minutes. Alessandro Matri sent Andrea Lazzari into space behind the Juventus defence and made up enough ground to score from the return pass and put Cagliari three points from the Champions League places.

"This evening the team had a great game. It took its chances and then at the end we didn't give Juventus anything," Cagliari coach Massimiliano Allegri said.

In the night's earlier match Napoli and Udinese scored two first half goals apiece to draw 2-2.

Ezequiel Lavezzi gave the home side the lead in the 24th minute, following good work by his attacking partner German Denis and Marek Hamsik added the second three minutes later when he headed in Walter Gargano's freekick.

Antonio di Natale scored his 11th goal of the season on 32 minutes after Paolo Cannavaro had brought down Kwadwo Asamoah to close the deficit, before Fabio Quagliarella scored an acrobatic volley from outside the penalty area on the stroke of halftime.

(Agencies via Shanghai Daily Feburary 1, 2009)