Sampdoria and ten-man AC Milan played out a 2-2 draw at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris on Saturday night in Serie A.
Stephen El Shaarawy opened the scoring for the Rossoneri with a rocket of a shot, before Stefano Okaka netted just before half time. Sampdoria took the lead in the second half through Eder, but Jeremy Menez equalised with a penalty. Then Daniele Bonera secured his second booking late on and was given his marching orders.
The first half started as Filippo Inzaghi would have wanted it too with Milan on the attack and chipping away at a confident Sampdoria. It only took nine minutes for Milan to find the net after struggling to string together an attack last Sunday at home to Palermo.
It was El Shaarawy who stepped up to the plate to end his goal drought as he picked the ball up on the left hand side of the pitch with the Sampdoria defence struggling to settle.
He dropped his shoulder to bamboozle the home defence and strikes for the far corner as he finds the net to put Milan one goal ahead.
It was Milan who continued to dominate but didn’t make domination pay as Sampdoria were slowly feeling their way into the contest. Eder looked lively as he struck at goal after 20 minutes and Gabbiadini became a much bigger influence as the half wore on.
Milan were still creating chances and despite a few set pieces Sampdoria couldn’t get too many shot on goal until just before half time.
A good piece of possession and pressure by the Rossoneri was tidied up by the Bucherchiati defence, leaving Romero to throw towards Eder who eventually had the ball under his spell to tee up Soriano. The midfielder played a brilliant through ball towards Gabbiadini on the left hand side of the penalty area. His dinked cross found Okaka at full stretch to toe the ball beyond Diego Lopez and go into the break level.
The second half kicked off with the momentum behind the home side and they certainly capitalised from it.
Sampdoria won a corner that was swung in by Gabbiadini. It was met by an outstanding leap by Obiang who hung in the air and powered his header towards goal. His effort rebounded off of the post to the feet of Eder who scored to put Sampdoria in front for the first time in the game.
The pattern continued until just before the hour mark as Inzaghi made an early change as he sent Fernando Torres on for the ineffective Keisuke Honda.
From this Menez’s role changed and within five minutes Milan had an opportunity to level from the spot. Menez found space down the left hand side of the Samp box. He played a dangerous ball across the box but as Mesbah went to clear he slipped and handballed the cross. Menez stepped up and converted to level things up for Milan.
Torres continued to be impressive as his break with eight minutes to go left the Sampdoria defence in his wake. He held the ball up as they caught up and played a simple pass to Bonaventura whose superb strike went just wide of Romero’s goal.
With five minutes to go Eder broke from a Milan attack. He played a pass towards Okaka who ran towards Bonera but was blocked off which earned the Italian veteran a second yellow card after picking his first one up in the opening 45 minutes.
Samp tried in vein to take advantage of the extra man, but to no avail and the game finished level.
