Roma, Palermo maintain winning Serie A starts

Roma and Palermo maintained their winning starts to the Serie A season yesterday with victories that leave them as joint leaders after two games.

Chilean midfielder David Pizarro scored his first league goal for Roma in their 3-1 victory at Siena with Brazilian Rodrigo Taddei and Stefano Okaka Chuka also on target.

David Di Michele scored both Palermo's goals in their 2-1 win away to Lazio to complete a good week for the Sicilian club who won at West Ham United in the UEFA Cup on Thursday.

Lazio's second straight loss left them on minus 11 points due to the penalty imposed by a sports tribunal which investigated Italy's match-fixing scandal.

Fiorentina, who began the campaign on minus 19, remain bottom of the table after suffering another defeat with their 1-0 loss to Tuscan rivals Livorno.

On Saturday, champions Inter were held to a 1-1 draw at home to Sampdoria.

Last night, Milan reduced their deficit to minus two points after a 2-0 victory away to Parma, their second successive win.

Brazilian midfielder Kaka sealed the points for Milan with an 86th penalty after Clarence Seedorf had opened the scoring in the 25th minute.

Roma's goals all came in the second half of their game at Siena who had Ezio Brevi sent off in the 27th minute after an aerial challenge on Roma's Daniele De Rossi.

After the break Brazilian former Siena winger Taddei put Roma ahead, poking home after good work from Italy international Simone Perrotta.

Then Pizarro made it 2-0, sliding home from close range before Brazilian Mancini struck the post for Roma.

Siena pulled a goal back through a scrambled Mario Frick effort before 17-year-old Okaka Chuka secured the win with Roma's third.

Palermo made Lazio pay for some sloppy defending with ex-Udinese striker Di Michele in clinical form.

Di Michele sprung Lazio's offside trap to give the visitors the lead with an 11th minute lob over the advancing Angelo Peruzzi.

Then the forward struck again in near identical fashion, seven minutes before the break, when he finished off a counter-attack with a cool lob.

Tommaso Rocchi pulled one back for Lazio and they had a chance for an equaliser but midfielder Stefano Mauri wasted a great opportunity.