Cremonese pulls off another Italian Cup shock to beat Roma | Soccer
MILAN (AP) — Unlucky in Serie A, Cremonese pulled off another Italian Cup shock on Wednesday, beating Roma 2-1 to reach the semifinals for only the second time in its history — and the first in 36 years. .
Cremonese, last without a league win, followed up their cup win at Napoli in the last round by knocking out José Mourinho’s Roma.
They will face Fiorentina in their first semi-final since 1987. The other semi-final will pit Inter Milan against Juventus or Lazio.
Cremonese’s win at Napoli was manager Davide Ballardini’s first game in charge and he followed that up with a draw in Bologna and a narrow loss to Inter in Serie A.
Wednesday’s game at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico was Cremonese’s first quarter-final since 1997, but the players didn’t let the chance come and impressed from the start.
Roma defender Marash Kumbulla was partly to blame for the opener, however, as he took too long on the ball, allowing Cyriel Dessers to steal it from him at the halfway line and sprint downfield into the area where he was knocked down by goalkeeper Rui Patrício. .
Dessers dusted himself off and fired an accurate penalty into the top left corner to give the visitors a 28th-minute lead.
Mourinho sounded the changes at half-time but Cremonese doubled their advantage four minutes after the break. David Okereke ran down the right flank and rolled the ball for Charles Pickel, who tried to send it back to Frank Tsadjout, but it was deflected into his own net by Roma defender Mehmet Çelik to return the 200 supporters crazy traveling people.
Andrea Belotti pulled one back for Roma in the fourth minute of added time.
JOY FOR JOVIC
Fiorentina avenged their league defeat in Turin by beating them 2-1 in the quarter-finals.
After chances for both teams in Florence, the breakthrough came in the 65th minute. A corner was taken aback by Aleksa Terzić, who whipped in a cross for Luka Jović to head for the far post.
Jonathan Ikoné sealed the result – and a place in the last four – with a fine strike into the bottom right corner in the last minute after good work from Arthur Cabral.
Cabral also hit the crossbar in stoppage time before Yann Karamoh pulled one back for Torino to set up a nervy final three minutes.
Torino won 1-0 at Fiorentina in Serie A less than two weeks ago.
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