AC Milan make ground as leaders Juve stumble

Sampdoria's Giulio Falcone (L) and Marcello Castellini celebrate their victory at the end of their Italian Serie A football match at San Siro stadium in Milan. Juventus lost 0-1.

Juventus saw their lead at the top of Serie A trimmed to five points after they lost 1-0 at home to Sampdoria and second-placed AC Milan thrashed Messina 4-1.

Aimo Diana's close range strike in the 33rd minute condemned Juventus to their first home defeat of the season and gave the visitors their sixth away victory, which lifted them to fifth place.

Defending champions AC Milan took full advantage of Juve's slip-up with Hernan Crespo and Jon Dahl Tomasson both scoring twice in an emphatic victory in Sicily.

Obafemi Martins grabbed the only goal as Inter Milan edged bottom club Atalanta to hold onto third place, while Udinese defeated Chievo 3-0 and remain fourth.

Roma fell one place to sixth after being held to a 1-1 draw at Lecce, while Palermo climed to seventh thanks to a 2-1 win Fiorentina.

Elsewhere, Lazio drew 0-0 at home to Brescia, Livorno drew 1-1 at home to Reggina and Cagliari came back from two goals down to draw 2-2 at Siena. Bologna play at home to struggling Parma on Thursday.

Sampdoria survived an early onslaught before taking the lead against the run of play in chilly Turin.

Marcello Castellini's powerful header from Cristian Zenoni's cross came back off the crossbar and Diana was first to the rebound, reacting quickest to stab the ball past Gianluigi Buffon.

Juventus bombarded the Sampdoria goal in a one-sided second half, but the steely Genoans held out, thanks largely to the superb goalkeeping of Francesco Antonioli.

Having suffered back-to-back defeats, AC Milan were under pressure to get a result against a team that had beaten them at the San Siro, but they simply overpowered their Sicilian opponents with an accomplished display.

Milan, who were without injured Ukranian striker Andriy Shevchenko, took the lead in the ninth minute.

Kaka fed Crespo with a cheeky back-heel and the livewire Argentinian accelerated past a posse of defenders before slotting the ball past Messina keeper Marco Storari.

The visitors increased their advantage in the 19th minute. Marcos Cafu's cross was poorly cleared by Storari and Tomasson prodded the ball home from close range.

Messina got themselves back into the match on the half hour mark when Riccardo Zampagna's superb overhead beat Nelson Dida at the near post.

Milan wobbled temporarily before Crespo restored their two-goal cushion in the 64th minute, exchanging passes with Kaka before side-footing in from 10 yards.

Andrea Pirlo had a penalty saved by Storari before Tomasson doubled his tally in stoppage time.

Italian league table after Wednesday's matches (played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points):