Osimhen double fires Napoli into quarter-finals for first time
Last 16 2nd leg
SSC Napoli 3-0 Eintracht Frankfurt (Agg. 5-0)
Victor Osimhen scored his 22nd and 23rd goal of the season as Napoli reached the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time with a 3-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt.
With Napoli leading the tie 2-0 on aggregate, Osimhen stretched their advantage to three goals with a stunning header on the stroke of half-time.
He doubled Napoli’s lead on the other side of half-time when he tapped home Giovanni Di Lorenzo’s cross from close range after a well-worked move.
Piotr Zielinski won and scored a penalty just after an hour played to put the game to bed.
The game started tightly but quickly opened up as it was clear Frankfurt were going to try to take the game to Napoli as they set up high up the pitch.
Mario Gotze had a good opportunity when he was slipped through on goal by Daichi Kamada, but was hesitant when Alex Meret rushed off his line to come and challenge for the ball and squandered a golden chance to pull Frankfurt back into the tie.
Despite Frankfurt’s effort to score their first goal of the tie, visiting goalkeeper Kevin Trapp was kept busy at the other end and made his best save to deny Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from close-range.
In the second minute of injury time at the end of the first half, an unmarked Osimhen had the ball in the back of the net when he jumped high to reach Matteo Politano’s cross and guide the delivery back across Trapp’s goal and into the net.
Eight minutes into the second half, Osimhen had the ball in the net again. Following a very well-worked Napoli move, Kvaratskhelia curled a pass wide to Politano who slipped a ball to Di Lorenzo making an overlapping run. He squared the ball across the six-yard box and past Trapp for Osimhen, who knew exactly where he needed to be to tap his second into an empty net.
Despite being in complete control of the tie, Napoli continued to push and were rewarded when Zielinski was tripped by Djibril Sow inside the box and given a penalty with just under half an hour to play. Zielinski took the spot-kick himself and scored, firing the ball straight down the middle.
The draw for the quarter-finals will take place on Friday.
