MILAN: Miralem Pjanic's free kick gave Juventus a 2-1 win at Chievo on Sunday as goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon celebrated his 600th Serie A appearance.
Gianluca Lapadula scored his first-ever Serie A goal to give AC Milan a 2-1 win at lowly Palermo while Empoli, who had scored two goals all season, tripled their tally in a single match with a 4-0 win at fellow strugglers Pescara.
Buffon, 38, became the fourth player to reach the 600-match mark after Paulo Maldini, Javier Zanetti and Francesco Totti.
The first 168 of those were with Parma, the remainder with Juventus and he also made 37 appearances in Serie B where Juventus played in the 2006-07 season.
Juventus went ahead early in the second half when Mario Mandzukic ran on to Juan Cuadrado's pass to sweep the ball past Stefano Sorrentino.
Sergio Pellisier equalised for Chievo from a penalty which he won himself after being tripped by Stephan Lichtsteiner but Pjanic curled in a free kick in the 75th minute to give Juve the points. Juventus have 30 points from 12 games, five ahead of Milan and seven more than AS Roma who host Bologna later on Sunday.
Lapadula, 26, who has spent most of his career in Serie B, finally made his mark in the top flight when he scored with a cheeky backheel from Suso's shot with eight minutes to go at Palermo.
Suso had given Milan an early lead, firing home after Palermo goalkeeper Josip Posavec and defender Haitam Aleesami collided with each other, but Ilija Nestorovski levelled for the Sicilians.
Massimo Maccarone ended Empoli's eight-game goal drought when he put them ahead after 12 minutes at Pescara and "Big Mac", who himself had not scored for six months, was on target again one minute before halftime. Manuel Pucciarelli scored in between and Riccardo Saponara added a fourth in the 89th minute.
Atalanta climbed to fifth with a 3-0 win at Sassuolo, their sixth win in seven matches.
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