Juventus And Napoli Advance To Coppa Italia Semifinals

Posted on January 26, 2017 by admin in Sports News

Reigning Coppa Italia and Serie A champions Juventus qualified on Wednesday for the semifinals of the Coppa Italia (Italy’s Cup) after defeating AC Milan, last year’s finalist of this competition, 2-1 at Juventus stadium in Turin.

Juventus’ goals were scored by Argentine Paulo Dybala and Bosnian midfielder Miralem Pjanic. In the first 21 minutes of the game, before Carlos Bacca cut the lead in half in the 53rd minute with a beautiful shot past Juventus goalkeeper neto.

When Milan looked like could storm back Locatelli was ejected from the game after seeing his second yellow card for an excessively aggressive tackle and undermined Milan’s efforts by leaving them with 10 men on the field.

After that, Juventus had a chance to score the third on a shot by Kwadwo Asamoah but Milan’s keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma intervened to save the Rossoneri. Time eventually ran out on Milan allowing Juventus to advance.

Now Juventus will play Napoli, who on Tuesday defeated Fiorentina 1-0 at Stadio Olimpico with a header by Spaniard Jose Maria Callejon in the 61st minute after a cross to the penalty area by Marek Hamsik.

Callejon now has 10 goals this season in all competitons while, this was Napoli’s 15 straight game without a loss.

Both teams finished the game with 10 men after red cards to Napoli’s Elseid Haysaj (90’) and Fiorentina’s Maximiliano oliveira (90’ +4).

The other two quarterfinal matches will be played next week . On January 31 Inter Milan will host Lazio and Roma will host Serie B’s Cesena. The winners of those matches will then proceed to play each other in the second semifinal of the competiton.

The two-leg semifinals will be played on March 1 the first leg and on April 5 the second leg before the one match final is played at Stadio Olimpico on June 2.

Juventus has won the Coppa Italia a record 11 times in 16 finals, while Roma is second with nine wins in 17 finals.