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Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Scudetto to Serie C - where did it go wrong for Sampdoria?
Italy has more than its fair share of iconic football clubs. AC Milan. Inter Milan. Juventus. Napoli. Lazio. Roma. These institutions roll off the tongue. For many English fans of Italian football, particularly those whose love of calcio can be traced back to Channel 4's 'Football Italia', Sampdoria belong on that list. In the decade between 1984 and 1994 Sampdoria won six major titles, while modern greats Trevor Francis, Roberto Mancini, Gianluca Vialli, Ruud Gullit and David Platt all wore the club's iconic strip. The Blucerchiati of that period acquired a cultural cachet that was hard to match. Yet after years of turbulence Sampdoria, Serie A winners in 1991, have experienced the unthinkable - relegation to the Italian third tier for the first time in the club's history. Where did it all go wrong? Unusually for a club with such a large cult following, Sampdoria are relative newcomers to the Italian football landscape. The northern Italian port city of Genoa has a proud footballing heritage -Sampdoria's city rivals Genoa Cricket and Football Club were founded in 1893 and are the oldest active team in Italy. The most recent of Genoa's nine top-flight titles came 21 years before Sampdoria were formed in 1946, following a merger of middling Genoese clubs Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria. That unification produced their iconic home shirts - the blue represents Andrea Doria while the white, red and black mid-section came from Sampierdarenese. Sampdoria have always shared a ground - the Stadio Luigi Ferraris - with neighbours Genoa, but for 38 years did not enjoy the kind of success befitting of one of Italy's grandest arenas. Everything changed in 1984. Before the 1984-85 season, Sampdoria's only honour was the 1966-67 second division title. Yet over the next decade the club won the Coppa Italia four times - more than any other side during that period - were crowned Serie A champions, won the European Cup Winners' Cup and played in a European Cup final. After assuming the club presidency in 1979, Paolo Mantovani was the man who turned an unfashionable mid-table team into serial winners. Having made his money in the oil business, Mantovani spent heavily but smartly to propel Sampdoria to unprecedented heights. Big names like Francis, Graeme Souness and Liam Brady were signed, but it was the recruitment of some of the best young Italian talents that really paid off. A 17-year-old Mancini arrived from Bologna in 1982, followed two years later by a 19-year-old Vialli from Cremonese. Nicknamed the 'goal twins' because of their prolific attacking partnership, both scored in the second leg of the 1984-95 Coppa Italia final, the first major title in Sampdoria's history. Mancini and Vialli first met at 16 playing for Italy's youth teams and formed a close friendship that characterised the unity in the Sampdoria squad. "We have a relationship that goes way beyond friendship," Mancini said before Vialli's death from pancreatic cancer in 2023. "He's almost like a brother to me." Along with goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca, defender Pietro Vierchowod, attacking right-back Moreno Mannini, midfield anchor Fausto Pari and electric winger Attilio Lombardo, the duo formed the backbone of a team that won three more Coppa Italia titles - and the club's first and only Scudetto in 1990-91 under legendary manager Vujadin Boskov. "Mantovani cultivated a remarkable camaraderie among a uniquely talented group," says Italian football writer Stephen Kasiewicz. "Despite more lucrative offers the core of the team stayed together." Boskov's side won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1990, and lost to Johan Cruyff's Barcelona 'dream team' in the European Cup final two years later. But nothing lasts forever. Mantovani's death in 1993 was "the beginning of the end at Sampdoria", according to Italian football journalist David Ferrini. He added: "Mantovani's reign attracted talent and kept them happy in Genoa, but his passing - combined with the hangover of the Scudetto success - meant that Sampdoria's best players became prime transfer targets." In 1992 they had lost Vialli to Juventus for a then world record £12m, while Inter Milan paid £7m for Pagliuca in 1994, a record for a goalkeeper at the time. Vierchowod joined Juventus 12 months later before Mancini followed Sven Goran Eriksson - who had replaced Boskov as manager in 1992 - to Lazio in 1997. Experienced stars Gullit and Platt joined for brief spells, but Sampdoria no longer had the same appeal they once did. Enrico Mantovani took over as president but failed to replicate his father's success - and a steady decline followed the Coppa Italia triumph of 1993-94. In 1999 the club were relegated to Serie B. Things improved under the presidency of local entrepreneur Riccardo Garrone, who guided them back to Serie A in 2003 and signed future cult heroes Fabio Quagliarella and Antonio Cassano. Yet the highlights of the 21st Century have been losing the Coppa Italia final in 2008-09 and a fourth-place league finish the following year. Outspoken film producer Massimo Ferrero bought the club in 2014 - taking on its growing debts - but what followed was seven years of selling their best players, spending little on replacements and flirting with relegation on a regular basis. "He seemed more concerned with bolstering his own image, as the bizarre star of his own one-man reality football show, than making sure Samp prospered," says Kasiewicz. In December 2021 Ferrero was arrested and jailed as part of an investigation into corporate crimes and bankruptcy, unrelated to the club. He resigned as president. "The club effectively ceased to function. It's been like a house of cards," says Nima Tavallaey, Italian football journalist and co-host of the Italian Football Podcast. With no funds available and Ferrero refusing to relinquish control, Sampdoria narrowly avoided relegation from Serie A in 2022. But in 2023 they did go down, amid reports of unpaid player wages. With the club staring down the barrel of bankruptcy and demotion to the fourth tier, a consortium led by former Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani and London-based financier Matteo Manfredi - and his company Gestio Capital - bought the club, although Radrizzani has since divested his shares. Gestio Capital and its investors control 99.96% of the club, with investment vehicle Kickoff Ventures owning 58% of those shares. Kickoff Ventures is owned by Singaporean businessman Joseph Tey Wei Jin, who was named in the 2015 Panama Papers. Italian World Cup winner Andrea Pirlo was hired as coach in 2023-24. After a dismal start to the campaign his side won seven of their final 11 games to secure a seventh-place finish in Serie B and a spot in the promotion play-offs, where they lost 2-0 to Palermo in the preliminary round. Gestio invested about £45m during their first season, but things have not gone according to plan this term. The month before Sampdoria's play-off exit Manfredi had described Pirlo as "a key part of the project" - yet three games into the current campaign he was dismissed following two defeats and a draw. Andrea Sottil replaced him and, although he oversaw a Coppa Italia penalty shootout victory against Genoa in the first Derby della Lanterna in two years, he was jettisoned too after just four wins in 14 games. Leonardo Semplici arrived in December but, with the club in the drop zone, a 3-0 home defeat by Frosinone at the end of March was the tipping point for the fans as patience with Semplici ran out. The team bus carrying Semplici and his Sampdoria players was pelted by stones and flares by angry supporters after the match at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium. Semplici was relieved of his duties in April with Alberico Evani - the club's fourth coach of the season - tasked with keeping them up. Things began promisingly for Evani with club legend Attilio Lombardo in as assistant and another Sampdoria icon in Roberto Mancini helping in an unofficial capacity. Evani began with a 1-0 win over fellow strugglers Cittadella, but three draws, a defeat and just one win since then have not been enough to keep them up. For Tavallaey, Sampdoria must now start again with a "proper project" in place to return the club to its former glories.. "They have to build a proper project with a proper sporting directorship and a proper manager to help them back to Serie A. They're a sleeping beauty." This article was first published in March 2025. Listen to the latest Football Daily podcast Get football news sent straight to your phone
Times
30-04-2025
- Times
The historic Italian coastal city that most tourists forget about
Andrea Doria rather fancied himself and his clan — perhaps justifiably. The admiral had led the offensive to liberate the Genoese republic from the French in 1528 and the newly built Palazzo del Principe, just beyond the capital's medieval centre, was to be his political and military base. In one room a portrait by the Florentine painter Bronzino shows Doria's arm wrapped around a ship's mast, his beard and virile pose alluding to Neptune, god of the sea. On the walls of the loggia terrace, overlooking the harbour, Doria's seafaring ancestors are represented as Roman heroes. One had defeated Pisa in battle, another Venice, yet another the Catalans. This was Genoa in the 16th century: a powerful maritime republic run by aristocratic families such as the Dorias that was soon to become Europe's banking capital as it financed Spain's campaigns in the Americas. Genoa in the 21st century? It's more of a pitstop than a base. The view from the palace gardens sums it up. To the left is the city's main railway station, the gateway to the Italian Riviera for second-homers from Turin and Milan. To the right looms the MSC World Europa cruise ship with its sparkling spiral slide, about to depart on a seven-day trip around the Med. Slicing right across the harbour front is the sopraelevata, a roaring elevated road that takes travellers from Genoa airport to the glitzy hotels of Portofino and the Cinque Terre. This northwestern port city isn't somewhere visitors linger, the panorama says, but rather a crossroads, somewhere travellers tend to pass through on their way elsewhere. • 14 of the best underrated cities in Europe to visit The upshots of this are obvious. While Florence, Rome and Venice are all fighting back against overtourism, Genoa rarely feels too busy — in fact many locals would like the cruisers to stick around longer than just a few hours. The hilly, labyrinthine centre hasn't been hollowed out by short-term lets. And if you avoid the shops near the cruise terminal, prices are clearly aimed at residents rather than tourists (you're talking €1 for a large slice of focaccia). It's lively and diverse, more like Naples or Palermo than its affluent northern neighbours Milan and Turin, and the Genoese are fiercely proud and welcoming. The city may not havemany headline attractions beyond the hulking Renzo Piano-designed aquarium on the waterfront, but in every restaurant, shop or small museum you get the sense of being let in on a secret few others know about. Most alluring, though, are the stories from Genoa's illustrious (and often forgotten) past. Alongside Doria, another name that figures prominently in the Genoese annals is Durazzo. Nine members of this Italian dynasty were doges — elected heads of state — when Genoa was an independent republic between 1099 and 1797. Now you can stay inside one of the family's ancestral homes, a seven-storey harbourside mansion that dates to 1624, which has been restored and turned into a luxury hotel. It's a brilliantly extravagant place to immerse yourself in the history of what was once one of the world's richest cities. The Palazzo Durazzo Suites are sandwiched between the old docks and the tangle of medieval alleyways known as the caruggi. You enter its cavernous entrance hall via a nondescript wooden door on the Via del Campo, the soaring ceilings and family insignia originally intended to dazzle foreign dignitaries. A red-carpeted stone staircase leads you to reception on the third floor, the double-height piano nobile, where our suite, Il Doge, gives onto the sopraelevata and the yachts and shipping containers beyond. My girlfriend Morwenna and I are immediately drawn in by the ceiling. Neptune — him again — snoozes on a rock. The adverse winds are chained to the shore; swirling zephyrs ensure calm seas and safety for the Genoese people. In this fresco by the artist Domenico Parodi the god represents the former owner Stefano Durazzo — who was galleys and war magistrate, and doge in the 1730s — lording it over the dockyards beneath the window (and the enemies out at sea). From the kingsize bed with a canopy shaped like a doge's hat, which looks tiny in the context of the 7m-high room, we feel suitably humbled. It's one of many features, from the gold-painted façade to the 18th-century terrazzo floors, that have been meticulously restored as part of a seven-year renovation, overseen by the architect Emanuela Brignone Cattaneo, wife of the Durazzo descendant Giacomo Cattaneo Adorno. Each of the 12 suites is unique and feels like a work of art. Some rooms have more traditional decor — the Oriente with its gilded tritons by Parodi, the Quattro Stagioni with its own private chapel — whereas others go in for a cleaner, more contemporary vibe. Le Conchighlie has a side room with a shell-covered ceiling inspired by the grottoes of the Ligurian coastline, while La Cupola is an all-white family suite with vaulted ceilings that looks like something from a sci-fi film. All original wooden doors and muted yellows and greens, ours is firmly at the more conservative end — sleeping Stefano deserves some respect, after all — but the sleek grey-painted bathroom with a walk-in shower and Diptyque products offers a splash of modern magnificence. The hotel belongs to the Palazzi dei Rolli, a Unesco world heritage site comprising 42 palaces that aristocratic merchant and banker families built to host important guests such as diplomats and royalty on behalf of the Genoese Republic during the 16th and 17th centuries. To get a sense of Genoa in its glamorous heyday, we wander along the Via Garibaldi, ten minutes' walk from the hotel, where the most OTT mansions are found. The Palazzo Rosso, now an art gallery, holds Chinese vases so big and beautiful you'll want to keep at least five metres clear of them (£8; the Palazzo Carrega-Cataldi, home to Genoa's Chamber of Commerce, has a spectacular rococo golden gallery inspired by Versailles' hall of mirrors (free; and the private museum Palazzo Lomellino hides a garden filled with follies, fountains and statues (£7; Much like central Venice and Rome, these palaces give the city the feel of an open-air museum. The key difference? We don't hear a single British or American accent all day. Squeezed between the Apennine Mountains and the Ligurian Sea, Genoa is known for its winds, and in autumn and winter it can drizzle all day long (I speak from experience). But you also have those harsh landscapes to thank for much of the finest local produce. Between our palazzo stops we duck into I Tre Merli, in a former customs building on the marina, for creamy trofie al pesto, small pasta twists with boiled potatoes and green beans in the sauce that Genoa is perhaps most famous for. The intense flavour of the basil comes from a mix of sun and the salty sea air that blows over neighbourhoods such as Pra, where the best stuff is grown (mains from £12; Other hearty dishes that offer a remedy for the chill are the pesto-topped minestrone and île flottante-like custard dessert sciumette at the soup specialist Zupp (mains from £11; on the Piazza di San Matteo, the Doria family's former stomping ground; and the stockfish, olive and pine nut stew — proper sailor's food — at the snug, family-run Le Rune, just outside the city's historic core (mains from £13; • Read our full guide to Italy here A storm rages on our penultimate evening as we tuck into perfectly cooked sea-bass-stuffed ravioli at the wine bar and restaurant Locanda Spinola, a few minutes' walk from the hotel (mains from £8; When we get back we find there has been a power cut and we are guided inside by a doorman with his phone torch, parking ourselves in the enormous lounge bar, where battery-powered lamps are in action. The vibe is less horror movie and more sleepover-style overexcitement: we make the most of the occasion by sinking into the three-cushion-deep red velvet sofas and exploring the wines from the owners' Villa Cambiaso estate in the hills near Genoa; the O Cona Coronata Val Polcevera white is light, fruity sunshine in a glass. The morning after brings low-key surprise after low-key surprise. For starters, the sun's out (as if that vino really had summoned spring). We head on a tour of the botteghe storiche, a network of about 50 well-preserved historic shops, many of which have been run by the same families for more than a century, in some cases two (tours £12; Our charismatic guide, Michela Ceccarini, describes Genoa as a 'city of the understated', and these small boutiques encapsulate that idea. We visit sweet shops, a pharmacy, a fabric maker, a tripery and a stationery store — in nearly every one, the chatty owners are on the shop floor, but one spot really stands out. On the face of it, Pescetto is a clothes shop specialising in silk and wool products, but the dedicated vintage area upstairs is more like a museum. There's a prewar woollen swimsuit, Scottish kilts from the 1960s and 1970s (popular among Italian teens at the time) and a vicuna fleece that has a €1,900 price tag on from a couple of decades ago; fourth-generation owner Francesca says it would be impossible to put a figure on it now. It's a fashion kid's haven. • 21 of the best places to visit in Italy Our final stop is the Museo di Sant'Agostino, an art and archaeology museum in a former monastery. Most of the exhibition space is closed for renovation until 2026 but we enjoy the tour of the storage rooms filled with tombstones, sculptures, altarpieces and frescoes from across nearly a millennium of Genoese history (£7; And in a neighbouring church, where much of the medieval collection is on display, I spy two Doria headstones from very different eras only a century apart. One is Pagano, depicted as a crusading warrior in 1360; the other Lazzaro, a serious merchant from 1486. It makes you think: what would the typical Genoese hero look like today? Modest and warm-hearted, I'd wager, steering you through the dark with an iPhone. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue Huw Oliver was a guest of the Palazzo Durazzo Suites ( which has B&B doubles from £310, and the Genoa Chamber of Commerce ( Fly or take the train to Genoa By Julia Buckley While tourist hordes lay siege to Venice, her near-neighbour floats blissfully crowd-free on her own peaceful inlet. Trieste has a very different feel from the rest of Italy — for centuries this was the sole port of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and as such you'll find Austrian-style coffee houses and swaggering mansions that wouldn't look out of place in Vienna. Taking centre stage is the millpond-flat Gulf of Trieste — see it while hiking on cliff-cut paths above the city; with a spritz from Piazza Unita d'Italia, the gargantuan square that meets the water; or from Miramare Castle, surrounded by a marine reserve. Stay at the Savoia Excelsior Palace, a grande dame on the B&B doubles from £154 ( Fly to Trieste What did the Medici ever do for us? Well here in Livorno they created a free port that not only attracted merchants from all over the Mediterranean, but guaranteed them religious tolerance in the intolerant 1500s. While Second World War bombing destroyed much of the centre, there are still pockets of beauty — starting with the Venezia district, its grand streets cut through with canals. Take a boat trip through thems, see the sparkling Tyrrhenian from the Terrazza Mascagni waterfront, and visit the two grand waterside fortresses that the Medici built. Try Livorno's legendary cacciucco (seafood stew in tomato broth) at Alle Vettovaglie (mains from £8.50; in the 19th-century market and stay in Venezia at the canalside Agave in B&B doubles from £68 ( Fly to Pisa Poor Catania — even with a volcano on the doorstep it's eclipsed by chaotic, addictive Palermo. Not particularly geared for tourism — the Castello Ursino (castle and art gallery) shut for repairs this year, though the website still says it's open — Catania tests your patience but rewards you with the real Sicily. That means a Roman theatre wedged between 19th-century houses, a vast cathedral built with black lava-stone hewn from Etna's eruptions, and incredible food — pasta alla norma originated here. Select works from the Castello Ursino, including an El Greco, are housed until further notice at the Pinacoteca Santa Chiara in an old monastery. Stay at the NH Catania Parco Degli Aragonesi, on the beach between the airport and the B&B doubles from £149 ( Fly to Catania
