Napoli came out on top in the lottery of penalties against Udinese at the Stadio San Paolo to book their place in the Coppa Italia quarter-finals.
The two sides shared four goals in a thrilling 120 minutes, but it was substitute Gonzalo Higuain who climbed off the bench to stroke home the winning spot kick.
From the very first attack Napoli were awarded a third minute penalty when, after a deep cross, referee Daniele Orsato adjudged Gabriel Silva to have held Duvan Zapata’s shirt.
It was a debatable call but Dries Mertens showed some mercy as the Belgian crashed his effort off the bar.
Walter Gargano thought he had scored his first goal since returning to Napoli with a dipping deflected strike. Scuffet was beaten but not the teenage stopper’s post as the first half ended somehow goalless.
Udinese though would open the scoring just before the hour mark with a devastating counter attack.
A Merten’s shot was blocked on the edge of the area and Cyril Thereau’s clever touch released Nabil Jaadi. The Moroccan teenager charged deep into the Napoli half before timing his pass back to Thereau to perfection to leave the Frenchman to slot past Mariano Andujar.
Incredible though, just moments later, whistler Orsato once again awarded Napoli a penalty. Duvan went down again, Thomas Heurtaux this time penalised for having a handful of his shirt.
Mertens stayed away this time and Jorginho showed him how it’s done to level the score at 1-1.
Although Switzerland international Silvan Widmer collected his first professional dismissal, Udinese looked more likely to find a winner in the 90 minutes.
That continued into extra-time as Napoli failed to make their numerical advantage count with Marek Hamsik receiving some boos from the crowd for a particularly poor performance.
They quickly turned to cheers after 99 minutes as the Slovakian produced a moment of utter brilliance. Cutting in from the left side, the 27-year-old unleashed a rocket of a shot to leave Scuffet beaten all ends up.
That looked to be that but just before the first extra-time break, Greek substitute Panagiotis Kone executed a scissor-kick finish from the edge of the box to write a further twist in this engrossing tale.
The match went to penalties and after eight successful conversions, Andujar saved to set up Higuain to be the hero and set up a last eight tie with Inter.
