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Dimarco caps Serie A MVP honor with a stunning free kick in Inter Milan’s finale

MILAN (AP) — Inter Milan midfielder Federico Dimarco celebrated his Serie A MVP award by scoring against Bologna as a much-changed Nerazzurri drew their final match of the season 3-3 on Saturday.

The match mattered little as Inter already owned the league title — and the Italian Cup — while Bologna had no chance of qualifying for Europe.

Inter coach Cristian Chivu gave players going to the World Cup an extra week off — namely Hakan Calhanoglu, Manuel Akanji, Marcus Thuram and Denzel Dumfries — but captain Lautaro Martínez started as the Argentina forward had only recently come back from injury and needed more playing time.

Dimarco, who was presented with his award just before the match, scored the opener with a stunning 25-yard free kick into the top right corner.

Federico Bernardeschi leveled just three minutes later and Bologna took the lead shortly before halftime when Tommaso Pobega’s volley took a double deflection.

Bologna lost half of its previous home matches this season but it appeared as if it was on course for victory at Stadio Renato Dall’Ara when Inter midfielder Piotr Zieliński turned a cross into his own net early in the second half.

But Pio Esposito reduced the deficit in the 64th when he tapped in a rebound after Andy Diouf’s effort bounced off the post. Diouf got on the scoresheet himself in the 86th.

Pedro’s farewell

Pedro bid farewell to Lazio with the winning goal in a 2-1 comeback victory at home against already-relegated Pisa.

The 38-year-old winger is leaving Lazio after five years with the capital club. Pedro previously played for Barcelona, Chelsea and Roma and won a sackful of trophies, including the World Cup with Spain in 2010 and the European Championship two years later.

Lazio players wore a special commemorative patch on their shirts for his final match.

Stefano Moreo headed Pisa in front but its lead didn’t last long and Lazio turned the match around with two goals in as many minutes from Fisayo Dele-Bashiru and Pedro.

Most of the rest of the final round of Serie A takes place on Sunday night, with four teams battling for the final two Champions League places and two teams fighting against relegation.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Analysis: The world Washington built is fraying. What comes next?

The United States is confronting a global security environment that increasingly resembles the outcome its Cold War adversaries once hoped to produce: a divided West, weakened alliances, economic exhaustion, multiple simultaneous wars and declining confidence in American leadership. That does not mean today’s crises were orchestrated according to some surviving Soviet master plan. The Soviet Union is gone, and the threats facing Washington now come from several different states with different interests. But the strategic effect is strikingly familiar. Early NATO assessments of Soviet intentions warned that Moscow sought to weaken the democratic powers, deny the West a secure European base and ultimately exhaust North America economically. Now, NATO says Russia is again trying to reconfigure the Euro-Atlantic security order through military force, sabotage, cyberattacks, coercion and disinformation. The difference is that much of the pressure now confronting the West is occurring simultaneously — and some of the damage to alliance cohesion is self-inflicted.
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