Rasmus Højlund scores twice against Jamie Vardy's Cremonese

Updated: Dec 28, 2025, 04:39 pm

Rasmus Højlund's first-half brace saw Napoli build on their Italian Super Cup success with a 2-0 win at Jamie Vardy's Cremonese on Sunday.

In their first match back on Italian soil after beating Bologna 2-0 in Riyadh on Monday to lift the Super Cup, Napoli bounced back from defeat to Udinese in their last Serie A outing to stay in touch with leaders AC Milan.

Højlund, on loan from Manchester United, took his season tally to nine when he doubled the lead in the dying seconds of the first half, and had a number of chances for a hat-trick in the second half as the visitors finished as deserving winners.

The Denmark forward opened the scoring in the 13th minute, following up on the rebound after Leonardo Spinazzola's initial shot was blocked.

Jamie Vardy's Cremonese lost 2-0 to Napoli.

It was Højlund again when Napoli next threatened in the 25th minute, but this time Emil Audero was out to save smartly at his feet.

Cremonese had done little to threaten going the other way, not quite able to pick out Vardy on their rare forays forward, but were appealing for a penalty in the 27th minute when Napoli loanee Alessio Zerbin went down under a challenge from Amir Rrahmani, only for the referee to wave the claims away.

Instead, Napoli doubled their lead before the break as Matteo Politano's cross took a fortunate deflection to find the unmarked Højlund, who fired in.

The 22-year-old remained the dangerman, lashing into the side-netting early in the second half.

Napoli continued to push for a third to kill the game off decisively. Rrahmani was narrowly off target with a header before Audero held a shot from Politano.

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As the game moved into the final 20 minutes they turned up the heat further, but Scott McTominay's shot was held by the goalkeeper before Højlund fired over from a decent cross.

The striker had another chance to complete his hat trick moments later but Audero was equal to his left-footed strike, and the goalkeeper then also saved from Stanislav Lobotka.

McTominay was the next to try but, when he too was denied by Audero in the 86th minute, that was that as Napoli had to settle for two goals.