Cremonese eliminates Napoli and advances to the quarter-finals

Continuation of the round of 16 of the Italian Cup with a duel of extremes between Naples, leader of Serie A, and Cremonese, 18th in the Italian championship, at the Diego-Armando-Maradona stadium. For this occasion, the Neapolitans wore a rather special jersey as they normally play with their traditional sky blue tunic. This new jersey, baptized “Premier amour” is also dedicated to Valentine’s Day. There is in particular the pattern of a large trace of lipstick visible on the white background of the jersey (see below). At the end of the first quarter of an hour of this meeting, Charles Pickel opened the scoring for the visitors after an assist from David Okereke (18th, 0-1) but the Partenopei reacted very quickly to equalize and even completely reverse this situation badly embarked even before the end of the first period. Napoli’s Brazilian central defender Juan Jesus was the first to find the fault for the locals a few minutes after the half-hour mark (33rd, 1-1). In the process, Giovanni Pablo Simeone scored a new achievement to allow the locals to take the advantage in this meeting (38th, 2-1).

Upon returning from the locker room, the two coaches made many changes but it was necessary to wait for the very last minutes of the match to see the score evolve. Cremonese found the resources to equalize in turn thanks to Felix Afena-Gyan after good work from Luca Zanimacchia (87th, 2-2). Note the good coaching of Davide Ballardini, freshly inducted on the bench of the first team, knowing that the two players had returned during the second period. Extra time was then inevitable for the 22 players in this meeting. Unfortunately for Cremonese, Leonardo Sernicola was sent off even before half-time for a second yellow card received (90th and 100th). At ten against eleven, the visitors were starting to really suffer. Despite the entry of Victor Osimhen in place of Tanguy Ndombele (102nd), the Neapolitans could not find the net either and the two teams headed for the fateful penalty shootout. The visiting team has done well to resist so far since thanks to a missed shot from Lobotka, Cremonese qualifies for the quarter-finals (2-2, 5-4 on pens).

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Davide Ballardini is the new coach of Cremonese