Sampdoria started with such high hopes, but the Eusebio Di Francesco experiment was a disaster and Claudio Ranieri salved their season, writes Rob Lambert.
Ranieri to the rescue
It’s been a season to forget for Sampdoria, who completed the 2018-19 campaign with room to grow, but had a disastrous start under new coach Eusebio Di Francesco and called in Claudio Ranieri to steady the sinking ship.
Sampdoria started with such high hopes, but the Eusebio Di Francesco experiment was a disaster and Claudio Ranieri salved their season, writes Rob Lambert.
Ranieri to the rescue
It’s been a season to forget for Sampdoria, who completed the 2018-19 campaign with room to grow, but had a disastrous start under new coach Eusebio Di Francesco and called in Claudio Ranieri to steady the sinking ship.
The previous term saw signs of life with the gradual project overseen by Marco Giampaolo, who left for an ill-fated move to Milan, but it had seemed as if it was a coup to hire Di Francesco, a man who had after all only recently taken Roma to the Champions League semi-finals. It was not to be, as he was axed after just one win and six defeats in the opening seven rounds. EDF had seemed somewhat lost, switching from his favoured 4-3-3 to variations of systems with three at the back, never quite getting a handle on the situation.
Read the full feature as part of our 2019-20 Serie A Season Review here.