Marked for Stefan Gartenmann
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market1 Feb 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Pro Patria waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sampdoria is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match30 Jan 2027
5 matches without a win for Sampdoria
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Sampdoria are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Sampdoria until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market1 Feb 2027
Sampdoria say no — this time
The offer from Thun for Yari Verschaeren was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market1 Feb 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words exchanged at Sampdoria
Salvatore Esposito and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Tjaš Begić runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
Sampdoria asked and Zulte Waregem said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match30 Jan 2027
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
In brief
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The dugout
No hiding place for Peter Vindahl
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Squad
A row about effort at Sampdoria
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Jan 2027
8 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market11 Jan 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Sampdoria have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market11 Jan 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Sampdoria, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Sampdoria have done the hard part with Gimnasia La Plata, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Salvatore Esposito and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match9 Jan 2027
Modena left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Leonardo Rodella and Sampdoria agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 43. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match4 Nov 2026
The cup run ends for Sampdoria
0‑1 against Genoa, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Lorenzo Insigne takes the afternoon — 9.14
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lorenzo Insigne provided it, and the 9.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market9 Nov 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Sampdoria
Salvatore Esposito and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match7 Nov 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lorenzo Insigne. 2‑0 against Juve Stabia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑0, already talking about the next one.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Stefan Gartenmann 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gaëtan Coucke, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Pietro Semino
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sampdoria lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Sep 2026
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market14 Sep 2026
AlbinoLeffe come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Sampdoria did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market14 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Simone Pellegrino is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alessandro Piras has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Pietro Semino
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sampdoria lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Sampdoria close the window on a squad of their own making
9 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Tours keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Leonardo Rodella is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Sampdoria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Salvatore Esposito 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Sampdoria
Fabio Depaoli and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Sampdoria asked and Kano Pillars said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market7 Sep 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Sampdoria have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.