Napoli knock Lazio out of Coppa Italia

Napoli won a dramatic Coppa Italia quarter-final to eliminate holders Lazio, a game with two red cards, a missed penalty, the woodwork rattled four times and two disallowed goals.

The winners of this fixture will go on to face Fiorentina or Inter in the two-legged semi-finals.

Reigning trophy holders Lazio had almost a full-strength squad, effectively missing only Luis Alberto and Danilo Cataldi, and were on a run of 11 consecutive Serie A victories. In very different form are Napoli, as Gennaro Gattuso lost four of his five Serie A games since taking over from Carlo Ancelotti. Stanislav Lobotka and Diego Demme got their first starts, but Dries Mertens, Kalidou Koulibaly, Nikola Maksimovic, Allan, Faouzi Ghoulam and Kevin Malcuit were injured.

There was one boost for the hosts, as the ultras returned to the stands after suspending their protest against ticketing restrictions.

It could not have been a better start for troubled Napoli, because within 90 seconds they had taken the lead. Captain Lorenzo Insigne did it all himself, dribbling down the left and placing it across Thomas Strakosha into the far bottom corner with the inside of the right boot from a tight angle.

However, Lazio fought right back, as Berisha only punched a Sergej Milinkovic-Savic strike and Elseid Hysaj mistimed the challenge on Felipe Caicedo for the rebound, leading to a penalty. The drama continued, as Ciro Immobile in his hometown slipped during the run-up and kicked the penalty into the air with his other foot.

The drama kept coming, as Hysaj made another avoidable error, flinging himself into a tackle to stop Immobile on the counter for his second yellow card, leaving Napoli down to 10 men after just 19 minutes. Gattuso had to adjust, meaning Lobotka’s debut lasted only 22 minutes.

Lucas Leiva’s game didn’t last much longer, as he was very harshly booked for a tackle on Piotr Zielinski, then immediately shown another yellow card for insulting the referee. Although the first yellow was debatable, VAR cannot be used on a booking.

It was straight back to 10 against 10. Both players will be suspended for the next Coppa game, as it’s a separate tournament to Serie A.