Watching a Sampdoria game evokes grainy television images of European nights and great champions.
It awakens memories of the club’s unforgettable 1991 Scudetto and its heroes.
Gianluca Vialli with his impertinent smile and laughing eyes, Roberto Mancini’s proud gaze and ever-perfect quiff, plus David Platt, Attilio Lombardo and Ruud Gullit.
‘Gullit is like deer coming out of the forest’
It also brings to mind the Serbian former coach Vujadin Boskov, whose malapropisms such as “Gullit is like deer coming out of the forest”, kept plenty entertained, and president Paolo Mantovani, the man who took the team to domestic and European glory.
Sampdoria, however, have long been none of these things. Their decline began with the death of Riccardo Garrone, club sponsor during the golden years, as CEO of oil firm ERG, then president of the club until his January 2013 death.
His son Edoardo’s brief presidency, handover to Roman businessman Massimo Ferrero the following year and the latter’s sporting and managerial policies eventually sank the club, pushing it to the brink of bankruptcy in a 2023 to forget.
Vialli’s tragic passing preceded the club finishing bottom of Serie A with only three wins all season.
This term the club, saved from financial disaster by ex-Leeds chairman Andrea Radrizzani and business partner Matteo Manfredi, failed to avoid the drop into the third tier for the first time.
How did it all end up like this?
Dark Clouds
In search of traces of past glory and the ruins left by more than a decade’s woe, FourFourTwo head to Sampdoria’s home game against fellow strugglers Cosenza, alongside lifelong fans Piero Mirulla and Silvio Regis.
For every home match, the two follow their heart and make the four-hour, 200-mile journey south-west to Genoa from Vicenza, near Venice.
We decide to meet at the Kafesito bar on Via del Piano, where supporters gather before matches.
Located in the Marassi district, along the banks of the Bisagno river-cum-stream, it’s a few steps away from the Gradinata Sud, Sampdoria’s home end at the venerable Stadio Luigi Ferraris they share with Genoa, now the city’s only Serie A club.
Travelling towards the city from Milan up north, we’ve barely left the Lombardy region behind and entered Liguria when dark clouds begin to assemble on the motorway leading down to Genoa.
It’s a winding route that demands close attention, even on a quiet Saturday morning.
Just as we approach Genoa, rain starts pouring down – such weather is a frequent companion in this coastal area, where moisture-rich air blows in from the sea and meets the mountains on which the city is built.
Floods and extreme weather phenomena have always characterised Genoese history.
Even against bottom-of-the-table Cosenza a clash that could deliver the club’s first win in 13 games, and fifth all season long in Serie B – the bad weather contributes to the heavy atmosphere around Sampdoria.
Those who run the club understand nothing about football. There’s a lack of heart
Three hours before kick-off, though, Via del Piano teems with life in blue, red and white colours.
You can hear the hearts of the Blucerchiati – those wearing a blue shirt with rings around it – beat.
The street is jam-packed and beer flows nearly as precipitously as the relentless deluge from above.
Tension hangs in the air.
Most people catch up on their Friday night shenanigans, anything to avoid talking about the upcoming encounter.
Piero and Silvio are also in town for the christening of the former’s niece, due to take place the following day.
Born and raised in the city, both now live outside the region and met in Vicenza.
“In the early 2000s, six of us from Genoa, all fans and all there for work, got together between Vicenza, Padua and Venice,” explains Silvio.
“It’s not uncommon to meet people from Genoa around Italy.
“Since the late 1970s, the city has endured a deep financial crisis – because of the mismanagement of the port, which has lost significant volumes of goods traffic, and the dismantling of large state-owned industries such as the Italsider steelworks in Cornigliano.
“In the 1980s, Sampdoria ran counter to the city’s trend. The team was doing well and had some of the best players in Europe, while things were getting worse and worse in the city.”
Piero remembers those days well.
“We’ve been season ticket holders since the 1980s, and we’ve seen all the best games in our history,” he reminisces.
“Going to the ground in those days was wonderful, if uncomfortable.
“Metal railings were everywhere between the stands, and you were always in danger of hurting yourself when Samp scored.
“The slightly humpbacked pitch drained the water well. Matches were never suspended because of heavy rain, unlike today.
“I liked the whole structure of the place better before the renovations to host the 1990 World Cup.”
The Luigi Ferraris’ Italia 90 fixtures included Costa Rica’s shock win over Scotland and the Republic of Ireland’s penalty shootout triumph over Romania in the last 16.
Little has remained from the venue’s pre-tournament years, bar the love of the fans.
Samp still boast 19,500 season ticket holders, a good deal more than several Serie A clubs.
Named after a former Genoa player who died during the First World War, the stadium is a curious Italian-English mix both old-fashioned and in need of some care.
Its look is English, with four independent stands separated by distinctive corner towers, all very close to the pitch, and no running track.
The logistics are more Italian, as the Luigi Ferraris is placed in the middle of the city centre and surrounded by streets, flyovers and houses.
Nestled in the hills, Genoa is built on several levels – there’s always something higher looming down on you, the rain included.
Pirlo and the viper
Sampdoria go into this showdown fifth from bottom, behind such minnows as Mantova, Carrarese and Cittadella.
Cosenza, at the table’s foot, are four points behind.
The bottom three will be relegated to Serie C, a level at which Sampdoria have never played.
Fourth and fifth bottom go into a relegation play-off, and the losers also go down.
“Those who run the club today understand nothing about football,” says Piero.
“We were hopeful Radrizzani would be the right person for us.
“He has certain competencies, but after taking over the club, he must have come to watch Samp 10 times, and we always seem to lose. I think he brings bad luck.
“There’s a lack of heart, too: players and directors don’t understand what Samp really means.”
Following relegation from Serie A under Dejan Stankovic, Andrea Pirlo was handed his third job as a manager, after spells with Juventus and Turkish side Fatih Karagumruk.
“Last term, Sampdoria finished seventh, just about enough to feature in the promotion play-offs, but Palermo soon ended their hopes of an immediate Serie A return with a 2-0 win.
“Sporting director Pietro Accardi made a clean sweep of last year’s team, but kept Pirlo,” adds Piero.
“In the first three games, we collected only one point, and Pirlo was sacked in August.”
“I hate Ferrero, but his predecessor Garrone threw the club’s doors wide open for him”
L’architetto’s replacement Andrea Sottil lasted until December.
Leonardo Semplici, who in 2017 guided minnows SPAL back to Serie A for the first time in 49 years, has since become the club’s third coach of the season.
Sampdoria’s current hierarchy has made multiple questionable choices, but the roots of the club’s problems lie deeper.
The so-called Sampd’Oro (‘Golden Sampdoria’) not only won the Scudetto in 1991, but had also lifted the European Cup Winners’ Cup a year earlier.
In the 1992 European Cup Final, an extra-time Ronald Koeman free-kick denied them success against Barcelona at Wembley.
It was Barça’s first European crown and paved the way to further greatness.
For Samp, continental finals were already a thing of the past.
Back then, the club were governed by wealthy oil tycoons, the Mantovani family.
By 2002, Sampdoria passed into the hands of another affluent Genoese oil tycoon, Riccardo Garrone, then to his son Edoardo after the former’s 2013 death.
So far, so good: the Garrone family is one of the richest in Italy.
In 2014, however, Edoardo flogged the club, for a symbolic €1 to scruffy-haired film producer Massimo Ferrero, nicknamed Er Viperetta (Little Viper) for his bold character and sharp tongue.
On the very same day as his Sampdoria takeover, Ferrero plea-bargained against a sentence for the fraudulent bankruptcy of an Italian airline.
He announced that his first act as president would be to “change our anthem, which sucks”, among a slew of weird antics, from tying a scarf around his forehead to look like Rambo while maniacally celebrating goals, to yelling ‘Forza Samp!’ in response to journalists’ questions.
Ferrero also provided cryptic aphorisms like “he who is born round cannot die square”, while seldom hiding the fact that he actually supported Roma.
“Garrone no longer wanted to spend any money on the club and simply gave it away to him,” laments 58-year-old supporter Domenico Pisani, here today with his younger brother Fabio. |”It was a disaster.
“For us it was unbearable to see such an inappropriate guy in charge of our club.
“In the beginning Ferrero had a fortunate hand with player sales, but with coronavirus, all the chickens came home to roost.”
Lacking funds, Ferrero had previously offloaded Patrik Schick to Roma, Milan Skriniar to Inter and Lucas Torreira to Arsenal.
In 2019, a potential takeover by a group of American investors led by the late Vialli fell through, before the pandemic plunged the club into crisis, with no revenue and no money.
“Garrone clearly informed me that, no matter what, he would intervene and help out; otherwise I would have never bought the club,” said Ferrero in a May 2023 interview, recalling nine-year-old discussions when he first took over.
In December 2021, Ferrero stepped down as Samp president after being arrested for alleged corporate crimes relating to other non-football activities, but he remained as owner.
A new board of directors took office, led by Marco Lanna, the only Genoa-born player from the club’s golden era, but fan protests regularly broke out over the next 18 months.
In the second half of their dismal relegation season, Sampdoria’s home match with Spezia was temporarily suspended when ultras chucked smoke bombs onto the pitch, while a letter was sent to the club containing bullet casings and threats aimed at both Ferrero and Garrone.
On another occasion, a severed pig’s head arrived in a parcel including a note addressed to Ferrero and vice-president Antonio Romei, warning “the next heads will be yours”.
“It’s all Garrone’s fault,” sighs Silvio, expressing a deep-rooted opinion in the Gradinata Sud. “How can you give away the club to a person like that?
“As much as I hate Ferrero, a person I was truly ashamed of, Garrone is the one responsible for his misbehaviour – Garrone threw the doors of the club wide open for him.”
Rays of hope
Just a step away from bankruptcy, Samp were finally saved by Radrizzani and Manfredi in May 2023 – the duo instantly injected around £35 million to help shore up the club’s finances.
With Manfredi now president, however, what’s followed has been 18 months’ Serie B purgatory, a whirlwind of coaches and results still poor.
“Hope never dies,” says Fabio, smiling. “Manfredi probably knows little about football, and he’s made mistakes, but he’s put his money and face into it.
“Now I hope he surrounds himself with people who know more about this business.
“Our passion remains unchanged, as do our daily arguments with the Genoa fans. They may be the oldest club in Italy, but in all these years they’ve never won anything.
“After returning from the European Cup final defeat at Wembley – 20,000 of us who made the journey to London – we discovered that their fans had taken a bath in the Piazza De Ferrari fountain in the city centre.
“How sad were they, living off our misfortunes? Anyway, it’s impossible to avoid them.
“I’m the president of Sampdoria’s Cantieri Navali di Sestri Ponente fan club, while my wife is a member of one of Genoa’s fan clubs, and my mother-in- law is its president. I must have done something really wrong in my life!”
Twenty minutes before kick-off, Via del Piano is almost empty, with most supporters already inside the stadium.
We join them and find ourselves in the middle of the bedlam. The Gradinata Sud, divided into two tiers, is packed.
Hundreds of blue, white and red flags wave in the dark grey sky. Cheering choirs alternate with traditional local songs.
Even the Gradinata Nord, which hosts Genoa fans during their home games, is reserved for the Blucerchiati’s today. Cosenza is 600 miles away in the far south of Italy, and only a smattering of diehards have made the trip.
It’s a poor contest between two poor sides. Ex-England Under-21 international Ronaldo Vieira, who joined Sampdoria from Leeds in 2018 when it represented a step up from the Championship to Serie A, is booked after 26 minutes.
Five minutes later, the 26-year-old midfielder receives an unnecessary second yellow card to reduce the hosts to 10 men for the remaining hour.
Despite the odds, Fabio Depaoli’s strike on the stroke of half-time secures Samp a much-needed first win since October. It’s a joy for the home faithful, who sing and support their team throughout, despite the conditions and the dreadful level of play. Victory is all that matters.
“It was a really bad game – when you consider how expensive our squad is
compared to Cosenza’s, there’s little to be cheerful about,” stresses Piero, back in the Kafesito post-match.
“The sun’s not shining, and the sky isn’t blue, but the odd ray here and there seems to be creeping through, no?” smiles Piero.
Turns out it’s the hope that kills you, but that’s what Sampdoria crave more than anything. For a club once so revered, the misery has gone on long enough.
