Naples, reigning Italian champion, was eliminated as soon as it entered the fray in the round of 16 of the Italian Cup in front of its home crowd by Frosinone 4 to 0 on Tuesday.
Even before the end of 2023, seven months after its third Italian championship title at the end of an extraordinary season, Napoli already knows that it will most likely end 2023-24 empty-handed, in any case in national competitions. Left behind in the league (5th), 14 points behind Inter, Naples, who will face FC Barcelona in the round of 16 of the Champions League in February and March, bit the dust in the “Coppa Italia”.
His coach Walter Mazzarri had chosen to rotate his squad, leaving most of his starters on the bench. But it was paradoxically from the hour mark when their scorers Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia entered the field that Napoli sank.
Enzo Barrenechea opened the scoring by surprising the Neapolitan defense from a corner (65th). Five minutes later, Giuseppe Caso, who started on the counterattack, doubled the lead. In added time, Frosinone added two goals, including one from the penalty spot, to validate its qualification for the first time in its history in the quarter-finals of the event.
In the next round, the Lazio club, which has been playing in Serie A since 2022, will face the winner of the duel between Juventus Turin and Salernitana on January 4.
The Naples players, jeered by the spectators at the Diego-Armando-Maradona stadium even before the final whistle, have still not managed to string together three victories in a row this season. Worse, they conceded their sixth defeat at home, in all competitions.
