Supercoppa | Napoli 3-0 Fiorentina: Simeone and Zerbin book final | OneFootball

Napoli are in the Supercoppa Italiana Final after beating Fiorentina 3-0 with Giovanni Simeone and a late Alessio Zerbin brace, but Jonathan Ikone’s missed penalty proved costly.

They will play either Inter or Lazio for the trophy on Monday evening.

This was the opening semi-final of the new Final Four format, including the runners-up for the Scudetto and Coppa Italia, all played at the Al-Awwal Park in Riyadh. Victor Osimhen, Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa and Christian Kouame were at AFCON, with Alex Meret, Mathias Olivera, Natan, Diego Demme, Nico Gonzalez, Gaetano Castrovilli and Dodo injured. Walter Mazzarri revamped his side to a 3-4-3 formation for the first time.

Simeone had to make a defensive block to stop Ikone scoring on a quickly-taken free kick, but Pietro Terracciano fingertipped a trademark Matteo Politano curler over the bar from the edge of the box.

Cristiano Biraghi’s volley flashed just wide, but it was Napoli who took the lead with a well-worked attacking move.

Kvicha Kvaratskhelia held off Nikola Milenkovic to flick on the ball for a Juan Jesus run down the left, the cross-field pass found Simeone at the back post to score with an angled drive. It was a special goal for Cholito against his former club.

Fiorentina had the ball in the back of the net on 28 minutes, but only after Giacomo Bonaventura had wandered into an offside position on the corner, knocking it down for Lucas Beltran to tap in. The Lucas Martinez-Quarta header had bounced off the upright.

Bonaventura blasted off target from distance, then Jonathan Ikone earned a penalty when trying to squirm between Mario Rui and Kvaratskhelia. He decided to take it himself, only to balloon the spot-kick over the bar.

Pierluigi Gollini smothered a Beltran effort after the restart and Arthur Melo blasted over from outside the box, while the M’Bala Nzola pull-back from by-line caused problems.

Bonaventura saw his volley charged down and Alfred Duncan fired wide, while Jens Cajuste and Pasquale Mazzocchi went off with muscular issues.

Napoli doubled their lead late on when a corner was flicked on and substitute Zerbin at full stretch tapped in at the back post. He did not get the opportunity to celebrate, as along with Fabiano Parisi was bundled into the net, hitting his head on the upright.

Zerbin went off for treatment, but the moment he came back on, immediately robbed Alfred Duncan and ran forward to beat Gollini with a right-foot angled drive into the far bottom corner.

Napoli 3-0 Fiorentina

Simeone 22 (N), Zerbin 85, 87 (N)

Missed penalty: Ikone 44 (F)

Napoli: Gollini; Di Lorenzo, Rrahmani, Juan Jesus; Mazzocchi (Zerbin 81), Cajuste (Gaetano 76), Lobotka, Mario Rui (Ostigard 73); Politano (Zielinski 73), Simeone, Kvaratskhelia (Lindstrom 73)

Fiorentina: Terracciano; Kayode, Milenkovic, Martinez-Quarta (Barak 88), Biraghi (Parisi 68); Arthur, Duncan; Ikone (Sottil 57), Bonaventura (Faraoni 88), Brekalo (Nzola 57); Beltran