Milan enjoy comfortable win over SPAL in Coppa Italia

AC Milan briefly forgot their Serie A troubles as they swept aside SPAL with a 3-0 victory in their Coppa Italia last-16 match on Wednesday.

Krzysztof Piatek, Samu Castillejo and Theo Hernandez scored for Milan, who are a modest 10th in Serie A after a miserable season, while veteran Zlatan Ibrahimovic stayed on the bench.

Piatek ran onto Ismael Bennacer's pass to open the scoring after 20 minutes against Serie A's bottom-placed team, and the Pole then provided the pass for Castillejo to curl in the second one minute before halftime.

Piatek missed two good chances after the break but it did not matter as Hernandez rifled in the third.

Earlier, last year's runners-up Atalanta were knocked out in a 2-1 defeat at Fiorentina, who scored the winner with 10 men.

New signing Patrick Cutrone exchanged passes with Dalbert before firing Fiorentina ahead after 11 minutes, his first goal since his move on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Josip Ilicic scored against his old club to equalise in the 67th minute and Fiorentina had German Pezzella sent off three minutes later as he received a second yellow card for diving.

Even so, Fiorentina won the match with six minutes left after Erick Pulgar released Pol Lirola on the right and he fired into the bottom corner.