Pjanic propels Roma past Napoli

Rome, Italy (SportsNetwork.com) - Miralem Pjanic scored a goal in each half to maintain Roma's perfect start to the Serie A campaign as the capital club downed second-place Napoli, 2-0, on Friday.

The win gives Roma eight wins from eight games and moves the club five points clear at the top of Serie A, while Napoli suffers its first defeat and could be overtaken for second place by Juventus if Juve gets at least a point at Fiorentina on Sunday.

Pjanic opened the scoring in first-half stoppage time with a superb free kick after teammate Daniele De Rossi cleared a goalbound effort from Goran Pandev off the goal line.

The lead was doubled 20 minutes from time when Napoli's Paolo Cannavaro received a second yellow card for bringing down Roma forward Marco Borriello inside the penalty area, earning Cannavaro an early exit and allowing Pjanic to fire home his second goal of the contest.

Juventus hopes to remain unbeaten when the club visits the Artemio Franchi on Sunday to face Fiorentina, which has lost once in seven games and sits in sixth place.

On Saturday AC Milan hopes to turn its fortunes around with a home win against Udinese as the Rossoneri tries to add to its two wins this season, while Cagliari meets up with Catania at the San Elia with both sides currently in the bottom half of the league.

Fourth-place Inter Milan hopes to continue its strong start when the club visits Torino on Sunday, while surprise package Hellas Verona hosts Parma as the club hopes to improve on its fifth-place spot in Serie A entering the weekend.

Lazio invades Atalanta, Genoa and Chievo will both hope to claim their second win when they square off at the Luigi Ferraris, Sampdoria travels to Livorno and the bottom two teams in the league meet up as Sassuolo hosts Bologna.