Napoli upset Juve to win Italian Cup

Napoli won the Italian Cup final 2-0 on Sunday to shatter Juventus’ hopes of a domestic double and ruin Alessandro del Piero’s final game for the Old Lady.

Second-half goals by Edinson Cavani and Marek Hamsik gave Napoli their first Italian Cup win since 1987 when Diego Maradona led the team in an unprecedented period of success for the club.

After winning Serie A and going unbeaten through the season, Juventus were aiming for a first domestic double since 1995.

“It’s almost unthinkable to beat Juventus over 90 minutes when they hadn’t lost all season. It was an achievement within an achievement,” Napoli coach Walter Mazzarri said.

Juve coach Antonio Conte named Del Piero in his starting lineup at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, despite fielding the forward only sparingly for the rest of the season. It was a decision that ultimately backfired.

With Juve trailing 1-0 and struggling to create chances, the 37-year-old came off to warm applause to be replaced by Simone Pepe, who five minutes later came close to fashioning an equalizer only for his deflected effort to be kept our by the legs of goalkeeper Morgan De Sanctis.

Napoli had gone ahead in the 62nd minute when Ezequiel Lavezzi won a penalty after goalkeeper Marco Storari’s foul and Cavani converted.

Hamsik made sure of a deserved win when he finished off a swift counter attack with seven minutes remaining.

Juve substitute Fabio Quagliarella was sent off in the 90th minute for elbowing Aronica to complete a miserable day for the Turin club.

After the celebrations die down, Napoli will turn their attentions to trying to keep hold of star players like Cavani, Hamsik and Ezequiel Lavezzi, who have all been linked with big-money moves away from the club.

In France, Montpellier won the Ligue Un title for the first time in their history - leaving big-spending Paris Saint-Germain to settle for second.

Montpellier only needed a draw but John Utaka scored twice to give them a 2-1 win at bottom club Auxerre, whose home fans twice held up the game by throwing tennis balls, toilet rolls and flares onto the pitch.

PSG won 2-1 at Lorient but Montpellier’s result made the result irrelevant. The southern club finished three points ahead of PSG, who failed to win the title despite having a budget to dwarf all of their rivals.

Since the club was taken over by Qatari owners last year, PSG have broken the French transfer record to buy Argentine playmaker Javier Pastore for €43 million, employed Brazilian Leonardo as sports director and brought in Carlo Ancelotti as coach.

Elsewhere in France, Dijon and Caen joined Auxerre in dropping out of the top flight and Eden Hazard scored a hat-trick in his final game for Lille – a 4-1 win over Nancy. Hazard is set to move to England, but did not reveal which club.