Italy

A late goal from Christian Vieri gave Internazionale a Milan derby victory and top spot in a desperately close Serie A table.

Vieri bundled the ball home off his right thigh to give his team a crucial victory over city rivals AC Milan at San Siro on Sunday night.

Earlier in the day, Juventus had briefly overtaken Roma as league leaders before they were in turn leap-frogged by Inter.

Juve laboured to a 2-1 win over Bologna and needed a last gasp own goal to secure the points after going behind to a Lamberto Zauli header early in the game.

French striker David Trezeguet's precise header put Juve on terms with his 17th goal of the season.

The game appeared to be heading for a draw until Massimo Tarantino headed the ball into his own net on 88 minutes.

Juve were aided in their cause by lowly Lecce, who held defending champions and leaders at the start of the day Roma to a 1-1 draw.

French defender Vincent Candela curled in a 34th minute free-kick to set Roma on their way, only for Lecce's Croatian striker Davor Vugrinec to take advantage of a piece of mis-handling by Roma keeper Francesco Antoniolo to head a 74th minute equaliser.

Argentine striker Hernan Crespo scored a hat-trick in Lazio's 4-2 win over relegation-haunted Venezia, who drop to last place.

Veteran striker Dario Hubner notched his 20th goal of the season to remain Italian football's capocanoniere as Piacenza drew 2-2 at Brescia.

Fiorentina threw themselves a lifeline with a 2-1 win at Verona, thanks to goals from Domenico Morfeo and Brazilian striker Adriano.

Romanian Adrian Mutu scored for Verona, who had defender Marco Zanchi sent off.

But their cause was not helped as Atalanta also won 2-1, at Udinese, to put further distance between themselves and the drop zone.

Christiano Doni's 15th goal of the season levelled for the Bergamo side who fell behind to Thomas Manfredini's goal.

And second-half substitute Alex Pinardi completed Atalanta's fightback with a late winner.

Spain

Valencia returned to the top of the Spanish first division on Sunday with a 1-0 win at Real Zaragoza.

Midfielder Francisco Perez Rufete's goal was enough to remove Real Madrid from the pole position they had snatched on Saturday by winning 1-0 at Celta Vigo.

Spanish international striker Raul settled a drab match by flicking in a header from a Zinedine Zidane cross after 81 minutes.

Roy Makaay scored the only goal of the game for Deportivo Coruna against Sevilla.

Deportivo now lie third, two points behind Real and three adrift of Valencia.

Real Betis lost ground on the leaders and dropped to fourth after only managing a 1-1 draw against Villarreal.

Germany

An already close race for the Bundesliga crown got even tighter when the top two teams were held to weekend draws.

Leaders Bayer Leverkusen could only manage a 2-2 draw against relegation-threatened Freiburg on Saturday.

But second placed Borussia Dortmund failed to take advantage the following day when they were held at home by another struggling side, St Pauli.

St Pauli have the division's worst away form and had not taken a point at Dortmund since 1989.

But an own-goal from German international Sebastian Kehl gave the underdogs a first-half lead.

And Dortmund had to sweat until the 82nd minute to get back on terms through a Marcio Amoroso penalty.

Leverkusen were hoping to recover from their 4-1 Champions League defeat at Arsenal but had to come back from two goals down to secure their point.

Michael Ballack headed the equaliser 14 minutes from time to spare Leverkusen's blushes.

They are now only one point ahead of Dortmund, while wins for Kaiserslautern and Bayern Munich allowed them to close the gap.

A hard-fought 3-2 win over VfL Wolfsburg left Kaiserslautern two points off the lead in third, with Bayern a further point behind.

Goals from Rocque Santa Cruz and Mehmet Scholl gave defending champions Bayern Munich their 2-0 win over Stuttgart.

Schalke 04 dropped to fourth place after being defeated 2-0 by Energie Cottbus.

Hertha Berlin's German international defender Marko Rehmer will be out for several weeks after damaging ankle ligaments in the match against Cologne.

France

Bordeaux and Lorient will contest the league cup final after sneaking 1-0 wins over Paris Saint Germain and Rennes.

An 82nd-minute penalty by Portuguese international Pauleta gave Bordeaux their third final appearance in five years.

The kick was awarded for a dangerous tackle by PSG captain Frederic Dehu on his Bordeaux counterpart, Christophe Dugarry.

PSG coach Luis Fernandez was sent off by the referee several minutes later after manhandling an official.

Lorient earned their passage with a 64th-minute winner from Jean-Claude Darcheville.

In the championship race, Lens extended their lead at the top of the first division with a 2-2 draw against lowly Metz in the only league match on Saturday.

El-Hadji Diouf levelled the score with a penalty three minutes from the end of time as Lens completed a comeback after falling two goals behind.