De Bruyne goes off after scoring in Napoli win, Vardy celebrates 1st Cremonese goal with backflip

MILAN (AP) — Kevin De Bruyne’s goal could prove costly for Napoli despite it setting the defending champion on the way to a 3-1 win over Inter Milan and back to the top of Serie A on Saturday.

De Bruyne appeared to pull a muscle as he converted a first-half penalty, immediately clutching the back of his right thigh. The former Manchester City player looked distraught and had to be helped off the field by two medical staff.

Scott McTominay and Frank Anguissa also scored for Napoli after the break, either side of an Inter penalty converted by Hakan Çalhanoğlu.

The result got Napoli back to winning ways — after last weekend’s loss at Torino and Tuesday’s chastening 6-2 defeat at PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League — and lifted it a point above second-placed AC Milan, which drew against Pisa on Friday.

“I live the game with my players, for better or for worse,” said Napoli coach Antonio Conte, who also steered Inter to the title in 2021. “We won despite the difficulties, we have important players absent and now De Bruyne has also been injured. Let’s say it’s not a very lucky year, maybe someone has cursed us.”

Inter, which had been on a seven-match winning run, was left in fourth.

“Inter had come to kill us, they were coming off a great moment, while we were in difficulty," Conte added. "But we have no intention of dying and we played a tough and vigorous match, putting in an excellent performance despite the difficulties.”

Napoli was already struggling with injuries and its problems got worse when De Bruyne was forced off after firing his spot-kick powerfully into the bottom corner.

The penalty had been awarded after Inter midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan was adjudged to have fouled Giovanni Di Lorenzo. Mkhitaryan also went off injured.

Inter came close to levelling the match in the dying seconds of the first half as Alessandro Bastoni hit the crossbar and Denzel Dumfries clipped the post.

The visitors continued to pour forward after the break but McTominay doubled Napoli’s lead in the 54th minute following a rapid counterattack. He sprung the offside trap to run onto Leonardo Spinazzola’s fine pass and drive it into the bottom corner from the edge of the area.

It was McTominay’s third goal this week after his brace against PSV.

Çalhanoğlu reduced the deficit five minutes later with a penalty after Napoli defender Alessandro Buongiorno charged down a Lautaro Martínez header with his arm.

However, Anguissa restored Napoli’s two-goal advantage in the 67th when he finished off another clinical counterattack.

Former Leicester striker Jamie Vardy celebrated in emphatic style after scoring his first goal for Cremonese, which drew 1-1 against Atalanta.

Vardy struck in the 78th minute, blasting in the rebound after Atalanta goalkeeper had made an extraordinary save with his foot to parry Alessio Zerbin’s effort.

The 38-year-old former England international celebrated acrobatically with a cartwheel and a backflip.

It was Vardy’s fourth game for Cremonese but only his second start. He signed for the Italian team in the offseason after a 13-year career at Leicester.

Marco Brescianini leveled for Atalanta.

Udinese beat Lecce 3-2 for its first home win since March 1.

Jesper Karlström, Keinan Davis and Adam Buksa scored for Udinese, which had picked up just two points in its previous four matches.

Udinese moved within three points of the top four. Como was sixth after it was held to a 0-0 draw at Parma. Benjamin Cremaschi, a 20-year-old American midfielder, made his Serie A debut when he entered in the 77th minute. He is on loan to Parma from Major League Soccer's Miami.

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Inter Milan's Hakan Calhanoglu scores their side's first goal of the game during the Italian Serie A soccer match between Napoli and Inter Milan, in Naples, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025. (Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse via AP)

Napoli's Scott McTominay, right, celebrates after scoring their side's second goal of the game during the Italian Serie A soccer match between Napoli and Inter Milan, in Naples, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025. (Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse via AP)

Napoli's Kevin De Bruyne reacts after leaving the pitch injured during the Italian Serie A soccer match between Napoli and Inter Milan, in Naples, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025. (Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse via AP)

Napoli's Kevin De Bruyne, left, leaves the pitch injured during the Italian Serie A soccer match between Napoli and Inter Milan, in Naples, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025. (Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse via AP)

Napoli's Kevin De Bruyne leaves the pitch injured during the Italian Serie A soccer match between Napoli and Inter Milan, in Naples, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025. (Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse via AP)

Three more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping a resurgent pest that could devastate the nation's cattle industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.

The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. The flies lay their eggs in open wounds of animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. The government has a program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females, which kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.

So far, there are five confirmed cases: three calves and a goat in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The small dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state.

The dog had not traveled to Mexico or Texas, so authorities were investigating around the property where the pet lived. If they find infected flies, animal inspections in the area will increase, New Mexico State Veterinarian Samantha Holeck said during a virtual news conference Monday.

The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. A case was announced Monday in a calf in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio, and in a goat in Gillespie County, west of Austin.

In each case, officials have set up a 12-mile (20-kilometer) quarantine zone to try to slow the parasite's advance.

Along with cattle and other warm-blooded livestock, scientists worry screwworms could devastate the millions of wild white-tailed deer in Texas.

Scientists expect new cases could pop up in the coming days and weeks, but it doesn't mean screwworm is spreading rapidly, said Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly.

“When that first case is seen, everyone is being vigilant and their eyes are on it more intensely,” Burgess said. “And when you are looking for something, you are more likely to see it.”

Screwworm gets its name from the maggots’ habit of burrowing — or screwing — into a wound, according to the USDA. The pest eats the flesh of the animal, further opening wounds and increasing the risk of deadly bacterial infections. Animals can die within a few weeks if not treated. There are a dozen government-approved medications to treat livestock.

The agency and the U.S. cattle industry have been racing to prevent an outbreak since screwworm was detected in Mexico late in 2024. The USDA has been dropping sterile flies in south Texas since February and is working to both increase sterile fly production in plants outside the U.S. and build a $750 million fly factory in Texas.

So far, screwworm's reappearance hasn’t greatly affected beef prices, which are already near record levels because there are fewer cows in the United States. Although the parasite attacks live cattle, it does not infest meat or fruit.

Canada temporarily stopped importing cattle, horses or other livestock from Texas on Friday. The parasites prefer humid areas where temperatures are at least 77 F (25 C), making them more of a summer problem up north.

Burgess said the long-term solution — breeding sterile male flies — is months away. Since wild female flies mate just once, if that encounter is with a sterile male, outbreaks can eventually be halted as the flies die out.

The goal is to have enough sterile flies to stop the pests from returning in 2027 after the winter kills off most of them, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said at a news conference at the U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas.

Scientists are also working on ways to sterilize only male flies to make the program even more effective.

Texas officials encouraged ranchers to keep a close eye on their herds and local wildlife. There's now a 24-hour screwworm hotline and a website and map for reported cases.

“This is a highly treatable condition if you act on it immediately,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said.

However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — who lost the recent Republican primary to a candidate backed by Abbott — said the federal response will take too long and risks crippling the cattle industry.

Instead, he says a poison bait could eliminate the screwworm problem in a few months, even if the USDA and other experts say the bait hasn’t been proven effective and could poison other flies, animals and even humans.

“What the hell is a good fly?” Miller said in an interview.

This story has been updated to reflect that the USDA revised the dog screwworm case to New Mexico, not Texas as the agency initially reported, and to correct the spelling of Kerrville.

Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

Signage is seen as U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins holds a news conference at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, center, holds a news conference with ranchers, researchers and officials at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A ranchers arrivse for a news conference with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

FILE - A test container of dyed fly pupae are displayed at a Domestic New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility to combat the northward spread of NWS and protect American livestock, in Edinburg, Texas, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - An adult New World screwworm fly sits in this undated photo. (Denise Bonilla/U.S. Department of Agriculture via AP)