“I bet Sampdoria will come out next week and beat whoever they have … 6 or 7-0 and Mihajlovic will still call them little girls.”
That was Forzaitalianfootball.com’s Serie A podcast host Sam Lewis’ response after hearing about Sampdoria coach Sinisa Mihajlovic’s outburst after the Blucerchiati lost 3-0 to Atalanta last week.
Doria did not score as many as 6 or 7 goals but they responded in style by thrashing Hellas Verona 5-0 on the weekend.
Mihajlovic deserves recognition for being a fantastic motivator. After saying that his players needed to be “men first and players second” after the Atalanta loss, he told the press before the Hellas Verona that the Sampdoria players were “going to throw Juliet off the balcony”.
After the victory, Radio MB’s Facebook fan page drew inspiration from Mihajlovic’s pre-match comments and used a digitally-enhanced image with goalscorers Gianluca Sansone, Renan Garcia, Roberto Soriano and Angelo Palombo on the balcony at the so-called Casa di Giulietta in Verona.
Radio MB called the goalscorers “The Four Musketeers” and in the caption below the digitally-enhanced photo, it said: “Oops! And Juliet is not here anymore.”
As great as his motivation methods were, Mihajlovic made important changes to the tactics and line-up too.
Shifting away from his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation, the former Serbian national team coach chose to use the standard 4-3-3 formation and gave starts to Renan and Sansone.
Angelo Da Costa started in goal and showed why he has held onto his starting position in goal as opposed to being replaced by Vincenzo Fiorillo. The Sampdoria goalkeeper made some excellent saves, with the best ones involved him denying scoring opportunities to Luca Toni and Michael Rabusic at point-blank range.
Lorenzo De Silvestri, Daniele Gastaldello, Shkodran Mustafi and Vasco Regini started in defence. Regini was the most attacking of the defenders, going forward more than usual and played arguably his best game in a Sampdoria jersey, assisting in Doria’s third goal scored by Soriano.
Palombo and Renan were box-to-box midfielders and Soriano was the most offensive-minded of the midfielders. All three midfielders got onto the scoresheet and for the first time in his Serie A career, Soriano scored two goals in a game.
Manolo Gabbiadini, Maxi Lopez and Sansone formed Sampdoria’s trident attack but only Sansone scored out of that trio. Gabbiadini did try his luck with some curling shots on his left foot and Maxi Lopez did some excellent work holding-up the ball and creating chances for his teammates.
Sansone made the most of a rare start. He scored the Doriani’s first goal with an opportunistic finish but he was the main creative spark in the team with his dribbling and passing.
Doria were so good that after 62 minutes, Mihajlovic replaced Gabbiadini with Eder and that probably halted the onslaught. Palombo had scored the fifth goal after 58 minutes.
Mihajlovic was content with the result but made it clear that it wouldn’t mean anything if Sampdoria lost to Sassuolo on Wednesday night, making reference to his team’s inconsistency.
He told Sampdoria’s home page: “Today we played well but in three days with Sassuolo we can’t play a s**t game again.”
Until Wednesday night, Sampdoria can take pleasure in having thrown Juliet off the balcony.
Doria-style, baby!
Follow Vito Doria on Twitter: @VitoCDoria
