Team Focus: Young Samp Side Defying the Odds with Strong Serie A Start

No longer in the same state of dishevelment and delirium as at Marassi on Sunday when, with his top button undone and tie unknotted, he hopped, skipped and danced on the pitch, twirling a blue, white and red handkerchief in the air to celebrate Sampdoria’s 1-0 win against Atalanta, their new owner and now cult figure Massimo Ferrero gave his reaction to the latest Italy squad on RAI sport’s Il Processo di Lunedi.

“I don’t know Antonio Conte,” he said in his unmistakable Roman accent, “but I respect him. I know that he has gone to see many clubs around Italy. I’d advise him to also come and see our youngsters up close. They’re good players and good kids: Okaka, Gabbiadini, Soriano…”

The strikers among them were expected to be on the list for the qualifiers against Azerbaijan and Malta. Okaka is the profile of forward Conte likes - a hard worker, willing to sacrifice himself for the team. “He’s our Denzel Washington”, Samp’s leading man, is how Ferrero, a film producer, has described the former Fulham loanee.

As for Gabbiadini, it’s not as though Conte is unaware of him. Co-owned by Juventus during his time as coach in Turin, the forward whose sister is also a professional footballer, is his team’s top scorer with three goals in four games. They include the opener against Torino and the winners in the Derby della Lanterna and last weekend’s game against former club Atalanta.  

Two have been from free-kicks. Besides challenging his coach Sinisa Mihajlovic the Serie A record holder in training, he has been studying Juninho Pernambucano and Pierre van Hooijdonk. “I liked how he took them a lot,” Gabbiadini told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Udinese and Verona have both been referred to as surprises this season, but what of Samp? They are third in the league. Together with Juventus, they are the only team to remain undefeated after the first six rounds of the championship. This hasn’t happened to the Blucerchiati in almost quarter of a century since the days of Boskov and Pagliuca, Mancini and Vialli. The last time was in 1990/91, the season they won the Scudetto for the first and as yet only time in their history.

Only once have Samp enjoyed a better start. That was five years ago under Gigi Delneri with Antonio Cassano and Giampaolo Pazzini up front. Victorious in five of their opening six games, they went on to finish fourth and qualify for the preliminaries of the Champions League. And to think this time a year ago Samp found themselves second bottom and winless.

The turnaround owes a lot to Mihajlovic. His past as a player brings with it great respect. He is gradually enhancing it as a coach. A fine communicator with more light and shade to his style of management than you might expect, he is able to transmit the right mentality according to the occasion and has balanced the team. Unlucky in derbies as a player, losing more often than not in Belgrade, Rome and Milan, he has become the first coach to lead Samp to back-to-back wins over Genoa since 1960.

Ferrero’s entrance and his antics since the summer have also generated enthusiasm. It’s hard not to root for Samp at the moment. Their team has an average age of only 25.2. It’s the youngest on the podium of any of Europe’s top 5 leagues. Alessio Romagnoli, the teenage centre-back on loan from Roma, has particularly caught the eye.

Called into Italy’s Under-21 squad for Friday’s play-off against Slovakia, he unfortunately got injured and had to withdraw, prompting Gigi di Biagio to ask Empoli’s Daniele Rugani to drop down from the senior squad. Popular on his arrival not least because his first Serie A goal came for Roma against rivals Genoa, the 19-year-old was La Gazzetta’s Man of the Match in the Derby della Lanterna at the end of last month and earned the highest rating of any outfielder (7.54) from WhoScored having produced 4 tackles and 8 clearances.

A tall and elegant left-footed defender, Mihajlovic has even gone so far as to say: “Romagnoli seems a lot like Alessandro Nesta but is blessed with greater technique.” That’s quite the endorsement. Curiously the coach who gave Nesta his Lazio debut, Zdenek Zeman, also handed Romagnoli his at Roma.

Raised in Nettuno near the capital, he was discovered by its most famous resident Bruno Conti. Initially Romagnoli didn’t play centre-back. “For my part, I had an intuition about this position,” recalls Sandro Tovalieri, the former Roma and Samp striker nicknamed the Cobra, who coached Romagnoli at Under-16 level. “Before Alessio played on the wing or in central midfield. I put him in the centre of defence. It’s his ideal role.”

Used as an emergency left-back by Rudi Garcia last season after Federico Balzaretti’s injury, the signing of Ashley Cole and decision to bring in Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa and Davide Astori as cover for Kostas Manolas and Leandro Castan meant there’d be limited space for him to develop further at Roma over the course of the current campaign.  Requiring a centre-back after World Cup winner Shkodran Mustafi was sold to Valencia, Samp withdrew their interest in the much-hyped Eder Balanta and organised to draft in Romagnoli for a year instead.

He hasn’t disappointed. WhoScored have rated his performances as the third best among teenagers in Europe this season (7.36) behind Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling and Valencia’s Jose Gaya. In his 277 minutes on the pitch Samp have conceded just once. Only Barcelona have a better defensive record than they do. Like Juventus and Bayern, Samp have only had to pick the ball out of their net twice but can count on World Cup winners in goal and at the back. Mihajlovic can’t. As a unit Samp have defended remarkably well. Only Juventus [7.5] have conceded fewer shots per game [8.3] this season in Serie A.

That gabbia or cage-like backline which has kept four clean sheets in six league matches is a revelation within a revelation. Samp are solid and consistent, something which, at least for now, can’t be said of anyone other than Juventus and Roma. One seriously doubts they’ll still be where they are now in May but with this spirit and this sense of direction, expect Samp to be in contention for the Europa League. These are dizzy heights but they are not scared of falling. “My Samp is not afraid,” Mihajlovic said. “We are up high, it’s true, but we are there with merit and above all wish to stay there.”

How high could Sampdoria realistically finish in Serie A this season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below