Napoli crash out of Coppa Italia after shock loss to Cremonese

Cremonese's Felix Afena Gyan, left, celebrates after scoring his team's second goal against Napoli during a Coppa Italia match at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in Naples, Italy on Tuesday. [AP/YONHAP]

Kings of Serie A they may be, but supposedly-unstoppable Napoli will not have a shot at any other domestic silverware this season after crashing out of the Coppa Italia on Tuesday.

Napoli lost on penalties to Cremonese after neither team was able to break a 2-2 draw over 120 minutes in the semifinal clash at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in Naples. The result will be a difficult one for the Partonopei to follow, coming at the hands of a club that face almost-certain relegation this year with not a single Serie A win so far this season.

Unexpectedly, it was Cremonese that opened the scoring in the 18th minute with a goal from Charles Pickel. Juan Jesus tied things up in the 33rd minute, with Giovanni Simeone putting the home side up three minutes later.

Just as Napoli looked set to walk off with the win, Cremonese tied things up three minutes before the final whistle. The game was pushed into extra time but even with the visitors going down to 10 men early on, Napoli could do little to break the deadlock.

Even the penalty shootout was tight. Napoli’s Stanislav Lobotka was the only player to miss, allowing Cremonese to take a 5-4 victory in the shootout to win the game and advance to the quarterfinals.

At the heard of Napoli’s stumble may be manager Luciano Spalletti’s — in hindsight, regretful — decision to field a weaker team for the cup clash.

With the Serie A clash against Juventus just a few day ago and another set to follow Salernitana set to follow this weekend, Spalletti likely banked on a fairly easy fixture against the league bottom-feeders allowing him to rest some important legs.

The entire back line was changed from the game against Juventus, with center-backs Amir Rrahmani and Kim Min-jae replaced with Juan and Leo Skiri Ostigard. Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Mário Rui were also gone from the back line, with both Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia notably absent from the front.

In fact, of the squad that faced Juventus, the only starting player that remained the same is goalkeeper Alex Meret, with Kim, Osimhen, Piotr Zielinski, Matteo Politano, Stanislav Lobotka and Andre-Frank Anguissa eventually coming on as substitutes.

So unusually for Spalletti, the biggest mistake may have been hubris. Resting players is inevitable, perhaps, with so many fixtures crammed into the second half of the season, but the no-nonsense Italian manager likely regrets the decision to gamble on such a dramatically changed team this week.

Napoli have just a few days to lick their wounds and try and get back on top before they return to Serie A on Saturday for the game against Salernitana on the road in Salerno, Italy.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]