Coppa Italia: Sampdoria eliminate Genoa in fiery derby

Sampdoria eliminated bitter rivals Genoa from the Coppa Italia to set up a meeting with Roma, while Udinese beat Salernitana for an Inter date and Cesena will play Atalanta after knocking Pisa out.

The Second Round of the Coppa Italia continued this evening with another three games.

As per the new rules this season, all the fixtures except for the semi-final are one-off events, while there is no extra time at this stage, only straight to penalties in case of a draw.

The big game was the Derby della Lanterna between bitter rivals Genoa and Sampdoria, marred by clashes in the streets near the stadium hours before kick-off.

The mood was much calmer around the game, but not on the pitch, where it was end to end stuff with numerous scoring opportunities.

Andrea Pinamonti broke the deadlock for Genoa early on, Milan Badelj pouncing on a poor Simone Romagnoli clearance and sending the striker clear on goal. To celebrate, the players held up the jersey of Ruslan Malinovskyi, who is out for the rest of the season with a fractured ankle.

Massimo Coda had two big chances to equalise, denied by Nicola Leali one-on-one, who also got down to meet Antonino La Gumina’s angled drive.

Gennaro Tutino failed to make the most of an Alan Matturro misplaced backpass, but Sampdoria did equalise late on when Fabio Borini blasted a loose ball in from the edge of the area.

Romagnoli received a straight red card in stoppages for hacking down David Ankeye on the counter-attack, so it went to penalties.

Fabio Miretti fired the first off target for Genoa, while Leali parried from Leonardo Benedetti to level the score.

Lorenzo Silvestri parried from Alessandro Zanoli and Antonio Barreca converted the decisive spot-kick to send Sampdoria through.

The Blucerchiati will face Roma in the next phase.

Coppa Italia Second Round ties

Pisa are runaway Serie B leaders, but they are out of the Coppa Italia, stunned 1-0 at home by Cesena thanks to a lone Raffaele Celia goal.

That means Cesena will be up against Atalanta in the next phase in December.

Udinese pushed past Salernitana 3-1 at the Bluenergy Stadium, despite Nwankwo Simy cancelling out the early Jaka Bijol opener.

Lorenzo Lucca converted a penalty before half-time, earned by a foul that forced Martin Payero to go off injured, and Jurgen Ekkelenkamp finished the rout after the restart.

Salernitana had the chance to make it 3-2 at the 84^th minute, but Ernesto Torregrossa’s penalty was parried by Razvan Sava.

Udinese will face Inter in the third round of the Coppa Italia.