Inter Milan’s hopes of miraculously winning the Serie A title this season took another blow at the hands of the relegation-threatened Spezia at their home.
Simone Inzaghi’s men had the opportunity to take advantage of the league leader’s slip-up but failed to dent the massive 15-point gap thanks to their 2-1 defeat.
Daniel Maldini and M’Bala Nzola scored for the hosts while Romelu Lukaku got on the scoresheet for Inter.
Things could have turned out a lot different for Inter as they were awarded a penalty in the 14th minute when Mattia Caldara was judged to have fouled Danilo D’Ambrosio after a VAR check.
But Bartłomiej Drągowski denied Lautaro Martinez from the spot to keep things equal before the two teams trudged through the opening 45 minutes.
The hosts made Inter pay for their sluggishness 10 minutes after the restart after Nzola held off two defenders inside the box before finding the on-rushing Maldini who fired a perfectly placed shot past Samir Handanović in the far corner.
Inter was awarded some respite in the 83rd minute through another penalty after Denzel Dumfries was fouled inside the box and Lukaku smashed home the resulting spot-kick to restore parity.
Dumfries then turned from hero to villain for Inter when he fouled Spezia midfielder, Viktor Kovalenko in the penalty area and Nzola scored the game’s third penalty to earn a shock win for his team.
Inter’s loss keeps them at 50 points from 26 games, 15 behind leaders Napoli who have a game in hand and can stretch the lead back to 18 when they take on Atlanta tonight.
