This is post eight of a wider series. A series for FM23.
“If you never lose, how are you going to know when you’ve won?”
In-game date: 29 May 2028
The lights in Enzo Scutari’s office are switched off. As darkness descends over the Luigi Ferraris, the manager exits the building and heads for his car for the final time. After managing 291 games across six seasons, picking up two trophies and earning three manager of the year awards, the journey is over.
Before we take a wider look at his six years in charge of Sampdoria as a collective body of work, how did Scutari’s final campaign turn out?
The 27-28 season
A commendable third place finish in Serie A was only captured on the final matchday after an intense 4-3 away win at Milan. After last season’s invincible league season, anything would have felt like a disappointment, but this season there were still lots of highlights.
Boulaye Dia continued his incredible goal scoring form by bagging 35 goals. Khephrem Thuram and Batista Mendy formed a formidable midfield wall in the middle of the pitch, while Goran Jonovic and Emanuel Silva emerged as the generational talents we thought they’d be.
If losing to PSG to go out in the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League sounds familiar, it’s because the exact same happened last year. Same stage of the competition, same brutal opponents. Coppa Italia progress was fair, though losing out to Milan in the Quarter Final stage meant that dreams of a re-run of 2025’s Sampdoria trophy lift were prematurely halted. Losing the domestic Supercup to Inter was Scutari’s second silver medal in the competition after a similar fate two years ago in the 2026 final.
The returning Samuele Birindelli fit straight in at right-back like he hadn’t left for Atlético Madrid for an aimless 18 months between his two Sampdoria spells, Riccardo Calafiori slotted in at left-back, taking over from the ageing yet loyal Tomasso Aguello and Giorgio Cittadini, now 26, showed glimpses of what made him such hot property in the Italian talent market just a few short years ago.
The disappointing Lorenzo Lucca (9 goals in 41 appearances) left for Lyon for £6.5million to disappoint French audiences instead of Italian ones (our system simply did not suit him, to be fair) and Julian Chabot moved back to Germany with Frankfurt in a £4m move after being pushed out of the starting lineup by the solid Nicoló Casale.
In terms of points and goal difference, the 27-28 campaign was Enzo Scutari’s second best return from his six seasons. Given that the only campaign that bested it was the invincible season of 26-27, that’s nothing to be upset about.
When questioned if a third place finish was a disappointing follow-up to an invincible campaign by a journalist from theangrylinesmen at the final whistle of the Milan game, Scutari quoted eccentric English singer Patrick Wolf by simply stating “If you never lose, how are you going to know when you’ve won?” Poetic indeed.
End of season (six) review
The club
The first thing to notice between the Sampdoria of 2022 when Scutari arrived versus the one in 2028 that he leaves behind is the estimated value of the club. The club has risen to be worth nearly fifteen times its starting value in just six years. Sure, the increase in Youth Facilities detailed here makes a difference, but the overall stature of the club has increased incredibly, leading to that valuation. Nice to see Enzo Scutari listed as a favoured individual and goal machine Boulaye Dia appearing as an icon. More on him later. Not pictured but worthy of mention is that the club have risen from literally not appearing in the top 444 in the European club rankings to 45th. Incredible what an invincible Scudetto and a few runs to the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League can do. For Scutari’s first two years Sampdoria generated zero coefficient points, so to rise from outside of the rankings to become the 45th “best” club in Europe is huge progress in the following four years.
With plans in motion for a new stadium to be built, free from the shackles of sharing with rivals Genoa and the Youth Facilities, Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment all transformed to be among the best in Europe, Scutari, with Ferrero ownership and Lanna as Chairman have really carried the club into the modern age after many years of developmental procrastination.
I’m not going to dive into the weeds of the financial detail of how Sampdoria have progressed in six years, I’ll leave that sort of thing to the experts like A FM Old Timer, but this particular slide is worth sharing. Scutari’s side spend the lowest percentage of their annual turnover on wages in Serie A. This means that the club is running in a more efficient and profitable manner than any other club in Italy’s top flight when it comes to generating income with one hand and not immediately giving it away with the other. This is a robust model, putting Sampdoria on firm financial footing. This is a hugely valuable additional advantage that has come in parallel with the developmental and competitive success of Enzo Scutari’s Sampdoria in his time in the hotseat.
On the pitch, if two trophies weren’t enough, losing only once in 10 meetings with bitter rivals Genoa wasn’t bad either.
The players
I’ll highlight a handful of specific stars momentarily, but first, the above reflects the core system ultimately settled on by Enzo Scutari. Full-backs providing width, a double pivot in defensive midfield anchored by a key Half Back.
Khephrem Thuram is unfortunate to miss out on the ultimate eleven of Scutari’s time at the club, only because he has fewer than two years at the club under his belt and most of the players above held considerable tenure. Thomas Strakosha ousted Emil Audero from between the sticks and was never replaced since his arrival. Frédéric Guilbert was a surprise hit both in defence and attack after his free transfer. Tomasso Augello and Abdelhamid Sabiri are the only two players who were at the club already when Scutari joined, and are still in the team today. Álvaro Fidalgo was brought back to European football after four years in Mexico to become a fantastic number 10 for the club (30 goals and 40 assists in 182 appearances) and while Manolo Gabbiadini was the club’s biggest star when Scutari arrived, Yerson Chacón did a fine job of replacing him out in that Inside Forward position on the right.
Next I’ll shine the spotlight on, for me, the top three players of the entire experience.
Dimitris Nikolaou was seen as a massive risk, and an expensive one at that when he arrived at Luigi Ferraris for a fee of £7million on transfer deadline day in January 2023, midway through Scutari’s first season in charge. The club were haemorrhaging goals and had only managed one win in the final five league matches of 2022 before the break for the Qatar World Cup. The £7m handed to Spezia on deadline day was widely considered to be a panic buy, but the Greek international slotted in at the left centre-back position on the pitch and never vacated it for the following five and a half years. When club legend Fabio Quagliarella hung up his boots, Nikolaou took the captain’s armband and the robust 6′ 2″ defender was a leader on and off the pitch from that moment on. 230 appearances for the club and captaining his side to two major trophies tells the story.
Abdelhamid Sabiri has been a consistent creative force for Sampdoria for six years and counting. A permanent signing for the club by the previous manager not long before Scutari arrived, the Moroccan initially flitted between playing as a central playmaker behind the front line and wide on the left, where he eventually settled. A deadly free kick taker, Sabiri regularly topped not only the club’s charts for assists, key passes and chances created, but the charts of Serie A too. 233 appearances, 43 goals and 83 assists.
Boulaye Dia was the unintended star of the entire journey. Signed for just £2.4million from Inter’s reserve squad after a failed move from Villarreal, Dia arrived in the same window as everyone’s favourite target man Lorenzo Lucca. Dia was supposed to be understudy to the boy wonder but massively outperformed him right out of the gate. A deadly left foot and the ability to run into space at just the right moment beyond the opposition defensive line meant that the Senegal star scored an incredible 149 goals in 157 appearances. His record in Serie A actually exceeds the ratio of a goal a game as he scored 122 goals in just 118 league matches. Tip – Those Player Traits on the right striker are a deadly combination.
What an icon. Boulaye Dia has been FM23’s Tomáš Chorý for me. If you know me at all, you’ll know that this is high praise indeed.
Sampdoria’s very own wonderkids.
Emanuel Silva was signed from Argentina’s River Plate for £5.5million in a deal that now looks like an absolute snip. As it stands today in May 2028, Silva is on the verge of starting ahead of Dia, the moment the 31-year old begins to decline. It’s rare you see a “20” attribute in a profile in Football Manager these days (unless you are Joshua Kimmich), and even more rare to see it beside Finishing. He has incredible strengths across all of his profile. Just don’t ask him to win any headers.
Goran Jonovic was picked up for just £1.5million from Vojdovina in his native Serbia in January 2026. After a loan spell back home until the end of the season, the exciting wide attacker slotted straight into the wide right attacking berth in the Sampdoria line-up. With excellent physical qualities, steely determination, high work-rate, aggression and the ability to strike the ball from distance, the 6′ 1″ 21-year old has it all. Given that he already features in the overall eleven from the save, albeit on the bench, shows the incredible impact the young forward has made already.
The manager
Enzo Scutari arrived in 2022 in post one of this series described as “a relatively young and untested yet academically qualified head coach taking the helm of a club who are perched on the edge of disastrous sporting adversity.“ Six years later and he departs as a name in the history books after taking Sampdoria from the brink of relegation to the heights of an undefeated Serie A title, a Coppa Italia and two last 16 appearances in the UEFA Champions League. With a net spend of just £16million in six years and the club’s infrastructure completely overhauled, it’s fair to say he’s ticked off all of the boxes.
In fact, he literally did, didn’t he?
Just 69 defeats from 291 matches fulfils the first requirement, one defeat in 10 derbies fulfils the second. Two years of significant playtime even after Quagliarella turned 40, to then hire him as a youth coach where he remains to this day certainly fulfils the third. Silva, Jonovic and a handful of others tick off the Mancini achievement (see previous posts for other highly promising prospects on our books). Most importantly, the 26-27 campaign returned the Scudetto to Sampdoria hands for the first time in nearly 40 years. The invincible nature of that win went beyond all of my wildest expectations.
The remaining two goals were for me to tick off around statistical analysis and explaining tactical thinking clearly. I feel that I did that, but I’ll let you be the judge.
The title of the series was ‘Magari’ which is a complicated Italian word. It means “let’s hope” or “I wish” but also expresses an inherent element of doubt, with an alternative meaning of a solemn “maybe.”
Now the series can considered completato.
What’s next?
Enzo Scutari’s story is over, at least for now.
But wait, he couldn’t possibly…could he?
Thanks for reading.
FM Stag