Napoli 1-1 Cagliari: Sudden death penalties needed for Conte
Baku, December 3, AZERTAC
Napoli needed a sudden death penalty shoot-out to push past Cagliari after a 1-1 draw and will face Como or Fiorentina in the Coppa Italia quarter-finals, according to Football Italia.
The Partenopei had rediscovered their form after a brief slip-up, having reshuffled their tactics to a 3-4-2-1 formation. The injury crisis dragged on, missing Billy Gilmour, Alex Meret, Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa, Kevin De Bruyne, Miguel Gutierrez and Romelu Lukaku, plus suspended Luca Marianucci. The Sardinians were without a win since the 4-1 Coppa Italia victory over Frosinone on September 23, scraping just four draws in the last nine Serie A games. Michael Folorunsho and Marco Palestra didn’t make the trip, with Yerry Mina, Ze Pedro and Luca Mazzitelli injured.
The Eljif Elmas free kick was cleared almost off the line by Sebastiano Luperto for a corner, and it was from that set play that Napoli took the lead. It was taken short for the Antonio Vergara cross to the back post, finding the Lucca header from point-blank range.
Matteo Politano’s pull-back from the by-line was cleared with difficulty, and another Vergara cross on the corner was a little too long for Lucca this time.
Alessandro Di Pardo curled his ‘trivela’ finish wide off the outside of the right boot from the edge of the area.
Politano curled off target after the restart and Pasquale Mazzocchi couldn’t get enough power on the finish to trouble Elia Caprile.
Cagliari made a triple change and it sparked a response, Matteo Prati’s strike deflected off Vergara to flash just wide, then Sebastiano Esposito fired over from a tricky angle.
The Sardinians visibly took back control of the game from a sluggish Napoli and got the deserved equaliser. Gennaro Borrelli went on the counter and was trying to pass it towards the right, but it took a big deflection off Scott McTominay to fall kindly for Esposito, beating Vanja Milinkovic-Savic one-on-one.
Conte threw on his big name players and McTominay shinned the finish wide from the edge of the area, but Alessandro Deiola also failed to make the most of a free header at the back post on Esposito’s set play.
McTominay was about to score a spectacular goal on 87 minutes, controlling on the chest with his back to goal and hitting a volley on the turn, only to be denied by a fantastic Caprile reaction save. On the resulting corner, Leonardo Spinazzola’s heavy touch let him down.
In stoppages, another Caprile save was required at the near post on the David Neres flick from a Spinazzola cross, while Politano drilled wide with the last kick of the game.
As there is 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.
They were all successful until Mattia Felici smashed his against the frame of the goal, but when he could’ve won it, David Neres saw his low effort saved by Caprile.
It therefore had to go to sudden death at 4-4, and kept going until Zito Luvumbo’s was parried by Milinkovic-Savic, allowing Alessandro Buongiorno to send Napoli into the Coppa Italia quarter-final.
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