Campioni D’Italia, here WE come!

By: Alberico | August 28th, 2008

I hope to see this image again this weekend. This Saturday, on what will be a night of beautiful weather in Genova, the streets that were once vacant and sad will be joyful again when the colors or blue, white, red, black, white and blue will fill it up once again. IT HAS COME! The first week of Serie A is here and Marassi and my beloved SAMP will host the champions of Italy, Inter in what promises to be a scintillating matchup, which will include many new faces including the baptism of The Special One to Serie A. I’m sorry Mr. Mourinho, but I hope you get your first win in week 2 and what a show this game will be. The game, which will be played at night, will feature so many great players such as Cassano, Palombo, Ibra, Balotelli and so many more.

This game has been so televised that over 7,000 tickets were sold in the span of 48 hours, which is a large figure since 20,000 people already bought season tickets in a 37,000 seat stadium. I can only imagine La Sud (Marassi’s section behind one of the goals where the DORIA ultras reign supreme) will absolutely make their voice heard and I cannot wait to be in front of my television set and start the cycle all over again. The cycle of nerves, sweat, joy, agony, victory, defeat.

Sampdoria is definitely in form and the Inter back line, which is not at full strength, will be tested even more so by the extremely fit and in form Cassano, who seems like he is going to fly out of the starting gate. i expect a marvelous performance by our wonder boy. The only problem right now for Samp is that we did not go out and find that extra striker we clearly need because Bonazzoli has not had a great preseason and Fornaroli still seems to need time to adjust to the Italian game. I mean Bonazzoli at times looks like he is lost out there and has always these dumbfounded looks. Unless he rediscoverss the form he had at Reggina or his first year at Samp, he will be looking to shop for a tweezer when he rides the bench again. I just don’t understand why we let Suazo get away. Maybe Marotta has one last ace up his sleeve. At least all Samp fans are hoping.

I expect this game to be very exciting but also very tactical on Samp’s side because they will have to be super prepared tactically to defend the 4-3-3 that Inter will almost surely use with probably Ibra, Mancini, and Balotelli, which I won’t lie, scares me and every other team in the league at this point. However, if there is one thing I am sure of, it is Mazzarri’s preparation. The team will certainly be ready and must take the game to Inter from the start. They cannot allow the Nerazzurri to get rhythm because once they do, they are lethal. They basically need to play as they did last year at Marassi in week 24 where they tied 1-1 almost walking away with the victory as Cassano opened the scoring just to be evened up by Crespo with 9 minutes to go. <a href=”“>
It will be very interesting to see how the new Doria players will perform and I honestly think Sampdoria will not walk away from this game without a point. If I were to make a prediction i would say 1-1 after the final whistle. And, hey, I think everyone wearing a Sampdoria jersey would take that in a
heartbeat.

Oh and lastly, tune in tomorrow because Sampdoria will learn its fate in the Uefa Cup drawing as we find out our opponent whom we will meet in a home and away leg to qualify for the group stages!!! EUROPE HERE WE COME!