Coppa Italia: Napoli progress to quarter-finals

Napoli have progressed to the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia after ousting Cagliari on penalties.

Antonio Conte’s men needed a sudden-death penalty shoot-out to secure a quarter-final clash against Como or Fiorentina.

After a brief slip-up, the Partenopei rediscovered their form and reshuffled their tactics to a 3-4-2-1 formation. 

The formation had to be adopted as Conte is without Billy Gilmour, Alex Meret, Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa, Kevin De Bruyne, Miguel Gutierrez, Romelu Lukaku,  while Luca Marianucci is suspended.

The Sardinians went into the clash, with their last being the 4-1 Coppa Italia victory over Frosinone on September 23, recording just four draws in the last nine Serie A games. 

Napoli almost got ahead as Eljif Elmas’ free kick got cleared almost off the line by Sebastiano Luperto for a corner.

 Napoli eventually took the lead from that set play, as the corner was taken short for the Antonio Vergara cross to the back post, which found the Lucca header from point-blank range.

Cagliari’s defense then cleared Matteo Politano’s pull-back from the by-line, and another Vergara cross on the corner was a little too long for Lucca this time.

Alessandro Di Pardo had an opportunity as his ‘trivela’ finish was wide off the outside of the right boot from the edge of the area.

Politano also curled his shot if the target after the restart, and Pasquale Mazzocchi couldn’t get enough power on the finish to trouble Elia Caprile.

Cagliari, with a triple change, sparked a response as Matteo Prati’s strike deflected off Vergara to flash just wide, and Sebastiano Esposito fired over from a tricky angle.

The Sardinians, who now control the game and deservedly restore parity from a sluggish Napoli. Gennaro Borrelli, through a counterattacking move, released a pass towards the right which took a big deflection off Scott McTominay to fall kindly for Esposito, beating Vanja Milinkovic-Savic one-on-one.

To show his intent of winning the tournament,  Conte threw on his big-name players, and McTominay shinned the finish wide from the edge of the area.

Cagliari had a chance to turn it around, but Alessandro Deiola failed to make the most of a free header at the back post on Esposito’s set play.

McTominay was stopped from scoring a spectacular goal on 87 minutes, when he chested the ball with his back to goal and hit a volley on the turn, only to be denied by a fantastic Caprile reaction save. 

Caprile made another save that kept them in the tie as the goalie saved the David Neres flick from a Spinazzola cross, while Politano drilled wide with the last kick of the game.

With no extra time in this stage of the Coppa Italia, the teams went straight to a penalty shoot-out at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, and the host came out winners after Zito Luvumbo’s spot kick was saved.

As both teams had lost a kick each, the game went sudden death at 4-4, and kept going until Zito Luvumbo’s was parried by Milinkovic-Savic.

 Alessandro Buongiorno then stepped up to send Napoli into the Coppa Italia quarter-final.