Inter Milan's winter signings Xherdan Shaqiri and Lukas Podolski combined to help fire them into the quarterfinals of the Coppa Italia at the expense of nine-man Sampdoria.
The Swiss midfielder, making his first start since leaving Bayern Munich earlier this month, swept up Arsenal loanee Podolski's pass to open the scoring in the 71st minute of play at San Siro.
Mauro Icardi had earlier seen his penalty kick saved by Sergio Romero but beat him in the 87th minute to confirm Inter's progress towards a meeting with either Napoli or Udinese.
Samp played most of the game without Nenad Krsticic after the Serbian was dismissed for fouling Icardi in the 12th minute and Pawel Wszolek followed his team-mate down the tunnel on 77 minutes.
Mario Gomez scored twice as Fiorentina cruised into the quarterfinals with a 3-1 victory over Atalanta.
Gomez, who has been struggling with injury and form, had only scored once in the previous 10 months. But he got Fiorentina off to the perfect start with a deflected shot in the sixth minute.
Juan Cuadrado doubled Fiorentina's lead from the spot in the 12th minute after Guglielmo Stendardo was harshly adjudged to have fouled Gomez, sparking fierce Atalanta protests.
Gomez added Fiorentina's third in the 28th minute before Rolando Bianchi scored a consolation goal just before half-time with a curler into the bottom right corner. Fiorentina defender Marcos Alonso was then sent off in the 84th after two bookings in three minutes.
Fiorentina will next face Roma in the next round.