'A house of cards' - Sampdoria face 'unthinkable' relegation

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 Sampdoria now find themselves struggling in Serie B - and facing the real threat of relegation to the third tier for the first time.

Where did it all go wrong?

Unusually for a club with such a large cult following, Sampdoria are a relative newcomer 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, while only a Ronald Koeman free-kick saw them lose 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 1994 they lost Vialli to Juventus for a then-world record £12m, while Inter Milan paid £7m for Pagliuca, 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.

Gullit and Platt joined for brief spells in the latter stages of their careers, 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 the club 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 starring 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, though Radrizzani has since divested his shares.

Gestio Capital say they and their investors now own 99.96% of the club and deny reports in Genovese newspaper Il Secolo XIX, external that Singaporean businessman Joseph Tey Wei Jin - named in the 2015 Panama Papers - actually owns the majority of shares through his company Kickoff Ventures.

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 and remains in position despite overseeing just two wins in 14 league games, both coming at the start of February.

Sampdoria find themselves 16th in the table - the final relegation play-off spot - with eight games left to play, and just two points above automatic relegation.

As things stand, a two-legged play-off will decide if they sink to the third tier for the first time.

"Dropping down into Serie C is unthinkable after all the efforts to keep the club in business," says Ferrini.

"Manfredi won't want to go down in history as the owner who took them down into the third division."

For Tavallaey, just avoiding relegation won't be enough.

"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."