0‑5 to Catanzaro, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Sandro Melis 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Tiziano Palmieri 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Jacopo Marchetti after 0‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Beaten 5 times, with 4 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nicholas Pierini provided it, and the 9.07 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.89 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 10 signed and 4 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Mattersburg is saying, and nobody at Sampdoria is enjoying the guessing.
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.
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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.98, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Sampdoria have done the hard part with Mattersburg, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
Add another name to the list: Aigle Royal de Moungo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gaëtan Coucke. The answer from Sampdoria has not changed — yet.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Jacopo Marchetti left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The deal with Bolton Wanderers is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Wrexham have kept their man, and Sampdoria go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Gustavo Rigazzi 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.
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Sampdoria had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Rodina, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
The name of Oliver Abildgaard has come up in conversations Sampdoria were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Sampdoria have made the call to Bolton Wanderers. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Stefan Gartenmann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Orazio Amato is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Martino Brambilla 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Fabio Sartori 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Michele Cattaneo 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Sampdoria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francesco Conti 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.
In brief
The dugoutFabio Depaoli knocks on the manager's door
“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.
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.
Oliver Abildgaard 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sampdoria, another week without a signature from Lorenzo Insigne.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.