Sampdoria 0–5 Inter
Stadio Luigi Ferraris, Genoa — In Sunday’s Serie A early kick off, Sampdoria hosted Inter with both teams seeking European places, Inter coming off a cagey nil nil draw with Napoli, and Samp losing by four to a Crotone side who’s fighting against relegation. Inter are yet to find their early season form, meanwhile Samp are getting recognition because of their unique system and impressive performances.
Inter’s main threat this season is coming from their flanks, with Candreva and Perisic — who on their day are two of the best wingers around in Italian football — feeding Icardi, with Borja Valero linking the attacks. On the other hand, Samp’s diamond midfield conducts the attack through their deep lying play maker Lucas Torreira, with Linetty, Praet on either side and Ramirez heading the midfield feeding the full backs and using the strikes for hold up play or providing scoring chances through the channels.
On Sunday, both teams fielded their usual systems. Sampodira missed Linetty through suspension, while Spaletti opted again for Rafinha after a not so convincing performance against Napoli. The Nerazzuri started the game strongly as Icardi failed to convert Joao Cancelo’s cross, a theme which would occur throughout the game. Spalleti projected most of his build up through wing play, a template which AC Milan used against Sampdoria a couple of weeks before albeit with a different plan when it came to the final third — Gattuso’s side used cross field passes between Suso and Calhanoglu to stretch Sampdoria’s diamond midfiled — in addition to using a third midfield player to link up and enhance wing play. The above resulted into moving both Praet and Barreto into undesirable positions as they would have to cover either the midfielder or the full back, Inter also made it worse for the diamond midfield by repeatedly resetting the build up and switching flanks once there were no available options.
Spaellti’s main idea was to isolate Candreva and Perisic against Sampdoria’s full backs, while providing them the ball and at the same time not bypassing Sampdoria’s compact midfield, as a result, Icardi was once again close to scoring after a low cross from Antonio Candreva. After that, an unmarked Cancelo provided a brilliant cross for Perisic to open the score
In terms of defensive formation, Inter were truly prepared for this Samp side. Rafina, Gagliardini and Brozovic were zonally marking Torreria, Praet and Barreto’s main area of creation while aggressively pressing the ball, Marco Giampolo’s other option would be long balls to Zapata and Quagliarella or accurate passes to Ramirez which were completely neutralized by Miranda or Skriniar pushing forward, assisted by any of the midfield duo dropping once a long ball was taking place. This type of containment gave Sampdoria less time on the ball, and forced them into more frustrated decisions which resulted in Inter’s pressing winning the ball in dangerous positions as seen in the build up of the penalty awarded for the second goal. Icardi managed to get the third with a smart back heel finish, 3–0 to Inter and only 32 minutes played.
By this time in the game, Sampdoria were completely frustrated with Inter’s wing play which destroyed their compactness leaving plenty of spaces in midfield and behind their full backs, a smart ball from Cancelo to Rafinha which was then scrambled through the penalty box gave Icardi the opportunity to score a first half hatrick, and the Argentine didn’t decline the offer.
And that was all she wrote, as Inter finished the first half and possibly the game 0–4 away to an impressive Sampdoria side, nothing to mention in the second half apart from a brilliant Icardi volley to grab his 4th goal of the game, and officially seal the game. Spalleti and the players were prepared for this game whether offensively or defensively, and their execution was beyond phenomenal, on the contrary Marco Giampolo’s reluctance to provide a more flexible transition between more than one system costed him the game as it was against Milan a couple of weeks ago.
