Rodrigo Palacio (left) of Inter Milan celebrates with his team-mate Gary Alexis Medel after scoring the opening goal during the Italian Cup match at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milan, Italy.


AFP/Rome


Serie A title hopefuls Roma were knocked out of the Italian Cup yesterday as second division Spezia caused a last 16 upset to advance to the quarter-finals on
penalties. After two periods of extra-time failed to produce goals, Roma midfielder Miralem Pjanic and then striker Edin Dzeko fired over the crossbar as the Serie B visitors took a 2-0 lead from the spot.
Italy midfielder Daniele De Rossi then French left-back Lucas Digne made amends by slotting their spot-kicks past Leandro Chichizola in the Spezia goal. But it was too little too late as the second division side advanced 4-2 to set up a quarter-final tie with Lega Pro side Alessandria.
A fortnight after ending Palermo’s interest in the competition with a shock 3-2 win in Sicily, Alessandria stopped Genoa’s progress on Tuesday thanks to a 113th-minute winner that gave the third division club a 2-1 win over the Serie A strugglers.
Inter Milan progressed to the quarters on Tuesday with a 3-0 home win over Cagliari and will now meet the winner of Napoli v Verona, while defending champions Juventus host city rivals Torino.
Rodrigo Palacio’s close-range tap-in opened the scoring on 24 minutes for Roberto Mancini’s league leaders against Serie B side Cagliari, who despite ousting Sassuolo in the last round were outplayed for long periods at the San Siro.
Marcelo Brozovic had scored a superb long-distance effort in Inter’s 4-0 win at Udinese on Saturday and hit another in the 71st minute to leave ‘keeper Alessio Cragno rooted to the spot. Ivan Perisic came off the bench in the latter stages and completed the scoring with a fine individual effort of his own nine minutes from time.
Also late last night, Fiorentina are in action later at home to Carpi while today sees Lazio, last season’s beaten finalists, host Udinese and AC Milan visit Sampdoria.