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Juventus grab advantage over Napoli in first leg of Coppa semi

Juventus rallied in the second half to defeat Napoli 3-1 on Tuesday in the first leg of their Coppa Italia semifinal.

Jose Callejon had given Napoli the lead and Pepe Reina had done well to keep out Juventus in the first half, but it was a different story after the break as Paulo Dybala netted penalties either side of a Gonzalo Higuain goal.

Juventus had the first scoring opportunity on 13 minutes as Dybala chased a long ball that Reina was able to stop, and the ball then trickled just wide of the post. And a minute later Reina was again called upon to stop a header from Mario Mandzukic.

But the visitors found their footing before the half-hour mark, with Marek Hamsik and Marko Rog both testing Juve keeper Neto from long range.

Higuain had a wonderful opportunity to open the scoring in the 33rd minute after being played in by Kwadwo Asamoah, but he blasted his attempt over the bar from eight yards.

And Juventus were made to pay three minutes later as Lorenzo Insigne played an inspired one-two with Arkadiusz Milik and crossed for Callejon to score at the far post.

Just before the break, Reina was again the hero as he made a diving save to deny a volley from Mandzukic and then got up to deny Stephan Lichtsteiner at the post.

But less than a minute into the second half, Juventus were handed an equaliser when Kalidou Koulibaly tripped up Dybala, and the striker scored from the resulting penalty.

Juventus then took the lead on 64 minutes following a corner, as the ball eventually fell to Higuain beyond the far post, and the Argentine was able to score from a tight angle.

The hosts added a third four minutes later in controversial circumstances. Just after Raul Albiol had penalty claims for Napoli, Juventus raced down the other end and Reina was whistled for bringing down Juan Cuadrado, though the keeper appeared to get a touch to the ball.

Dybala was again on target from the spot and Juventus easily saw out the victory ahead of the second leg in Naples on April 5.