Ronaldo hands Juventus easy success

The result keeps Juventus at the top of the Serie A table. The Portuguese talisman squeezed his shot under Bartlomiej Dragowski in the 40th minute and sent the Fiorentina goalkeeper the wrong way late in the second half to take his tally for the season to 19. This was after Fiorentina held its own for much of the game.

Defender Matthijs De Ligt headed the third in stoppage time to add more gloss to the scoreline. The award of the second penalty, after Rodrigo Bentancur went down under a challenge from Federico Ceccherini, was met with angry protests by the visitor.

Juventus, which bounced back from last week’s 1-2 defeat by Napoli, has 54 points from 22 games. It was Fiorentina’s first league defeat in five matches since Giuseppe Lachini replaced Vincenzo Montella as coach.

Real wins Madrid derby

Real Madrid twisted the knife into its wounded rival Atletico Madrid as Karim Benzema fired it to a 1-0 home win in the city derby on Saturday.

The result underlined table topper Real’s La Liga title credentials. Benzema’s strike gave Real its first home victory over its neighbour in the league since 2012 and piled more pressure on Atletico head coach Diego Simeone, who was subjected to taunts from the gleeful Santiago Bernabeu crowd.

French forward Benzema had not scored in his previous four league outings but broke the deadlock in the 56th minute of a tight game. He side-footed home a cross from full-back Ferland Mendy after Real manager Zinedine Zidane sprung a double substitution.