Juventus beat Cagliari 4-0 with goals of remarkable quality and skill from Dusan Vlahovic, Teun Koopmeiners, Francisco Conceicao and Nico Gonzalez, setting up a Coppa Italia quarter-final with Empoli.

Those teams drew 1-1 here on October 6 and Juve were on the back of four straight draws in Serie A and were sent off after a 2-2 draw with bottom side Venezia on Saturday. With Douglas Luiz, Arkadiusz Milik, Jonas Rouhi, Gleison Bremer and Juan Cabal out of action, the defenders were spared for Manuel Locatelli and Wes McKennie in unexpected roles. The Sardinians arrived without Zito Luvumbo and Adam Obert, but their priority was to get out of the league’s relegation zone.

See how it turned out in the live blog.

Cagliari had a huge chance in the first 40 seconds when Nadir Zortea rolled over from the right for Gianluca Lapadula to slide in, Michele Di Gregorio responded desperately with his foot.

Dusan Vlahovic shot over from a tight angle after breaking the offside trap following an assist from Teun Koopmeiners, then Mateusz Wieteska had Kenan Yildiz’s acrobatic volley saved from 12 yards.

Francisco Conceicao’s left-footed shot from the edge of the box went just wide of the far post, then another shot on goal was curled in from the top corner by Simone Scuffet.

Juventus finally took the lead when Kenan Yildiz hit Vlahovic from eight meters with a clever pass, which the striker controlled with his back to goal, turned on the spot and fired the ball through Wieteska’s legs into the far bottom corner.

The Bianconeri doubled their lead after the restart with a great free kick from Koopmeiners, who directed the dangerous left-footed shot into the top corner from a good 30 meters away.

Vlahovic had the ball in the net moments later with a wonderful dink finish, but he was offside when Khephren Thuram shot the ball over the goal.

Francisco Conceicao forced an unorthodox scuffet save at the near post, while Nico Gonzalez was unlucky when his free header from a corner deflected inches away from Lapadula.

Vlahovic scored his second disallowed goal of the game, again for offside, with a diving header to Francisco Conceicao’s curler that went wide.

It should have been 3-0 in the 78th minute when Vlahovic caught Alessandro Deiola napping in midfield and charged forward alone, but as he tried to get around Scuffet he narrowed the angle too much and could only hit the side netting.

Instead, after several attempts, Francisco Conceicao finally managed to score his goal by crossing Jose Luis Palomino and directing the ball into the bottom corner with his left foot.

Nico Gonzalez finished off the best with a truly extraordinary goal as he started the run from his own half and, in full sprint, managed to throw Scuffet from the edge of the penalty area with remarkable precision.

Michele Di Gregorio kept a clean sheet when Prati struck straight at him on a successful Cagliari move.

Juventus 4-0 Cagliari

Vlahovic 44 (J), Koopmeiners 53 (J), Conceicao 80 (J), Nico Gonzalez 89 (J)

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