This is post two of a wider series. A series for FM23.
“Every sunset is an opportunity to reset. Every sunrise begins with new eyes.”
In-game date: 8 April 2023
It’s April 2023 and there are ten Serie A games to go in Enzo Scutari’s first season in charge at Sampdoria.
This blog post is one of hope and positivity. If I’d paused to write this just one in-game month ago, the tone would have been very different. Scutari’s favoured system initially was a 4-2-3-1, pictured here in an astonishingly well-liked Tweet I sent out about tactical player swaps.
The passing was relatively direct and the concept was to counter aggressively and achieve overloads with the Segundo Volante pushing into space from deep, the Advanced Playmaker finding “pockets of space” and the right-back marauding down the flank overlapping Gabbiadini as he cut inside to support Caputo up top. Concede possession but be clinical in response when the opportunity was there.
It failed.
Not the player-swapping, that worked a treat on the rare occasion Sampdoria had a successful attacking move, but the specific combination of these players and that system. We successfully conceded the bulk of possession, we just didn’t have the required athleticism, decision-making or incisiveness to play such a reactive tactic.
There were strong rumours that Scutari’s Sampdoria reign was going to be short and not entirely sweet as we failed to win 11 league games in a row and had dropped to 15th in the table, rapidly tumbling towards the danger zone. Pivoting the blog to Scutari managing another side is not what I had in mind, but may still have to be the case.
Then one day, everything changed.
Poking the bear
Jonathan Simpson, a probing journalist from theangrylinesmen stopped Enzo Scutari as he was leaving Atalanta’s Gewiss Stadium having watched his Sampdoria team lose 2-1. A rampant Ruslan Malinovskyi dictated the entire game for the home side. The most pressing problem however, was in the submissive nature of the performance. There was seemingly little desire from Sampdoria’s players to arrest the perpetual slide as this match made it 10 in a row without a victory.
Allowing Atalanta almost eight successful passes on average before a meaningful defensive action and only managing 34% possession is relegation form. There were plenty of sprints from Sampdoria’s players, but they were busy fools as their efforts seemingly had no impact.
“Many Sampdoria fans are calling for your sacking, Enzo. Are performances like this the type you like to see from your players?”
There was a pause for a few seconds while the fuses in Scutari’s head lit up like Christmas. If Christmas was a drunken bar brawl with rocket launchers.
“Are you a moron?” Enzo’s thinly-veiled disdain for sports media hadn’t leaked out so much as smashed through the floodgates. “What do you want from me? No, is the answer Jonathan. No it is not what I like to see. Nor is it what I accept. Changes are needed. If you cannot see that changes are needed, you shouldn’t be a fucking football journalist.”
Shaken by the Italian’s vitriolic response, the sports writer blurted out “What message do you have for the fans, Enzo?”
Already halfway between Jonathan’s Dictaphone and the stadium exit, Enzo Scutari roared “Every sunset is an opportunity to reset. Every sunrise begins with new eyes!” With that he disappeared through the exit towards the blue and red team coach idling quietly outside.
Out of context, those words could be read as greeting card rhetoric. Just one step above “Live. Laugh. Love.” on the barometer of clichés. The bellowing delivery and fire in the Sampdoria manager’s eyes however, told a different story.
A timely reversal
Something changed in the attitude and application of the Sampdoria players in the three days which followed.
Wednesday the 8th of March 2023 arrived and the visitors to Luigi Ferraris were table-topping Inter Milan. The bookmakers hadn’t given Scutari’s men a hope in hell. Astonishingly, despite Jeison Murillo’s sending off early in the second half, a double from Ciccio Caputo secured a point against the usually rampant Nerazzurri . Scutari’s side won the battle for possession and nearly doubled their previous pressing efficiency, illustrated by an OPPDA of 4.88 in contrast with the 7.79 of the weak display at home just 72 hours earlier.
So what changed?
Gone was the direct 4-2-3-1. In came a narrow 4-4-2 diamond.
The tactical thinking of the above is that defensively there is a three to five man backline, with the Half Back occupying the D at the edge of his own box. The red arrows represent player movement. The Half Back also acts as the pivot in transition, collecting the ball from the goalkeeper and aiming to create tight short passing triangles until there is the option to move the ball forward in a meaningful way.
With a Positive mentality and Counter enabled, the two Central Midfielders have a genuine appetite to get forward, but this risk is counterbalanced by the shorter passing and focus on retaining possession. Although the team are ideally one-touch passing their way sidewards and forwards to create meaningful attacks, the presence of Hit Early Crosses (long passes signified by the yellow dash arrows above) mean that longer range driven or lofted passes towards the front three can spring from seemingly nowhere, disrupting the opposition’s press and marking plans. Short passing and Hit Early Crosses may seem like conflicting ideologies, but to give it a modern parallel; it’s like your full-backs playing a Kevin De Bruyne-style long pass in the middle of otherwise robust keep-ball football.
As the Half Back anchors the midfield and the Complete Wing Backs and both Central Midfielders want to get forward, his instructions to Dribble Less and request to Hold Position means that when he is not knocking the ball to the Centre Backs nice and tidily, he is turning and playing disguised low passes towards the three attack minded midfielders down the centre of the pitch that make up the diamond.
This Half Back passing concept is best illustrated by watching Sergio Busquets in action, and the YouTube video below highlights this beautifully. It’s not my video content and belongs to the account which made it.
Here are two examples of Enzo Scutari’s Sampdoria in action, adopting his new tactical approach.
After the Inter Milan draw, Sampdoria were reborn. The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed from the earlier Schedule screenshot that we are now unbeaten in five matches, with three wins and one draw from the next four fixtures. From 11 games without a win to five games unbeaten is quite the turnaround. With ten games to go and the team sitting in 12th position, though having played one match more than a few of the neighbours, hope is high of a top-half finish, comfortably away from the relegation zone. I guess time will tell.
Transfers
24-year old English midfielder Ronaldo Vieira is someone I’d rather have kept, but right from Scutari’s arrival he signalled his intention to run down his contract and experience new challenges after five years in Italy. Off to Cruz Azul he went for £450,000. £61,000 a week backup right-back Andrea Conti left for Almería which gave us a nice bit of breathing room in the salary budget. A few other fringe players left, Manuel De Luca to SPAL for £600,000 and the promising homegrown Spaniard Gerard Yepes on loan to Benevento, but no key first-teamers exited the club in the January 2023 window.
In terms in incoming players, Sampdoria product Pedro Obiang returned to the club for £190,000 after spells at West Ham and Sassuolo. This improved our homegrown quota in our squad registration. French right-back Frédéric Guilbert joined for free to replace Conti after his Aston Villa contract expired last summer. In the midst of our form crisis, Scutari splashed out a structured £7million on transfer deadline day on Greek international centre-back Dimitris Nikolaou from Empoli. While not yet as individually transformative as intended, Nikolaou has slotted in as first choice centre-back alongside Murillo and sits atop the squad charts for headers won ratio, possession won per 90 and successful blocks per 90 in his nine matches so far. He is not a glamorous signing to excite the fans, but at only 24-years old, he could be a mainstay in our backline for many years to come.
Lastly, we signed this absolute heart-throb. You need the sound on for this one.
Despite some Twitter-based debate about how Graziano Pellè, 37, could possibly be the world’s most handsome footballer when Olivier Giroud exists, I was excited to bring in some much needed aerial threat and striking cover, especially on a free transfer.
Now the funny thing here is that I spent longer in video editing making that amusing video than Pellè actually played in 2022-23 for Sampdoria. A squad registration issue meant that he couldn’t play in Serie A games until the January window opened, and by that time he had entered the final six months of his short term deal. AEK Athens offered him a contract to join them, and in rebalancing the squad, it made sense to save his wages immediately and let him move to Greece before his bags were truly ever unpacked in Genoa. He was at the club for 138 days, making three appearances and failing to score. We wish him well.
Save goals update
‘Be not terrible’ would have been an F if it wasn’t for the tactical switch and current run of five games without a loss. Pass marks so far.
We haven’t crossed paths with Genoa yet. We didn’t meet in the Copa Italia this year but they currently sit top of Serie B. I dare say we will meet again in season two in the top flight.
Club legend Fabio Quagliarella signed a 12 month extension taking his deal to the summer of 2024 where he will be 41 and a half years old. Long may he continue. His contribution this year has been excellent with six goals and five assists to his name, flexing between playing as a 10 and as a sort of 9 and a half.
We’ve had one youth intake so far but no mini Mancini in sight, I’m afraid. Though Scutari did manage to convince the board to improve all three of the development holy trinity of youth recruitment, youth facilities and junior coaching, so progress is definitely being made!
I haven’t delved into statistical analysis just yet, but in the next post which covers the end of season one and reviews performance so far, you can bet the calculations and scatter graphs will be out in full force.
I think I’ve given a detailed account of my current tactical thinking in this post, but please let me know on Twitter if there are other elements you want me to cover.
Lastly, the Scudetto. 30 competitive games into Scutari’s career and we are a million miles away from that, and that’s ok.
What’s next?
The tense final ten league games of the 22-23 campaign need completed, as well as the aforementioned statistical review of our performances this season.
Although Harry Winks sadly won’t extend his loan here at Sampdoria and I won’t pay / can’t afford the £21.5m required to fulfil his optional fee, we have another creative midfielder from England arriving in the summer. This time it’s not a loan and instead a permanent deal on a free. Details to follow in the next blog post.
The start to life here in Italy has been a baptism of fire, but hopefully the change of system, youth development and robust plan for improvement will serve us well as we steam towards season two.
Oh, and there’s the small matter of a versus match against A FM Old Timer‘s Genoa to contend with soon.
Thanks for reading.
FM Stag