Monza, winning counterattack: brianzoli will face Juventus

Monza’s counter-attack is worth the round-robin passage in the Italian Cup

Five goals and a lot of spectacle in Wednesday night’s round of 16 match of the Italian Cup: in the end, Monza came out on top, winning 3-2 at home to Udinese to advance to the round of 16, where they will face Juventus.

Raffaele Palladino’s team went ahead in the 45th minute through Mattia Valoti, but in the first part of the second half Udinese momentarily overturned the fortunes of the match: the great protagonist was Nehuen Perez, who signed first the goal of the equalizer in the 49th minute and then the goal of the lead in the 68th minute. Immediately after the goal, the Brianzoli coach made two changes that proved decisive in a matter of minutes: first Salvatore Molina (who entered in place of Marco D’Alessandro) scored the 2-2 in the 70′, then it was Andrea Petagna (on the pitch as a substitute for Valoti) who signed the counter-attack goal.

The Friulans’ onslaught in the final was not enough: Monza went through, thus entering the stage of the tournament in which the top eight of the last Serie A championship make their debut: the schedule for the round of 16 includes, having completed Wednesday’s matches, Milan-Torino, Roma-Genoa, Atalanta-Spezia (Gotti’s team overcame Brescia 3-1), Inter-Parma (1-0 by the Gialloblù at Bari) and Monza-Juventus. Still to be decided are the opponents of Lazio (between Bologna and Cagliari), Napoli (between Modena and Cremonese) and Fiorentina (between Sampdoria and Ascoli).