Marked for Matteo Palma
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match15 May 2027
16 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings17 May 2027
A brace, and Nicholas Pierini takes the afternoon — 8.33
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nicholas Pierini provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market17 May 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Sampdoria heard it as anything else.
Squad17 May 2027
A season average of 7.06 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Sampdoria know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad17 May 2027
Salvatore Esposito falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad17 May 2027
Antonín Barák was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The terraces17 May 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Tjaš Begić has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match15 May 2027
A 2‑0 win over Padova, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad17 May 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sampdoria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Feb 2027
Sampdoria cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Match13 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Sampdoria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dennis Hadžikadunić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad15 Feb 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Sampdoria's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sampdoria has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match26 Dec 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Sampdoria did not have in the autumn.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Salvatore Esposito was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Mattia Viti falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Wages eat 200% of everything Sampdoria earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match5 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Sampdoria's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sampdoria has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
No sign of nerves from Simone Pafundi at 20 — 7.90
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Simone Pafundi did not need any: 7.90, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad7 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sampdoria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Sampdoria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Viti is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces7 Dec 2026
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad7 Dec 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Sampdoria told Liam Henderson something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Matteo Palma named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Matteo Palma is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Match5 Dec 2026
It needed Simone Pafundi to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Mantova, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.