Is Sampdoria's 10-year stay in Serie A under threat this season?

With Filip Ðuricic’s late equaliser came a glimmer of light for Sampdoria in what has been a bleak start to this Serie A season. Trailing 1-0 away to Bologna, it was looking like further gloom for a side that are still awaiting their first win of the campaign. Ðuricic’s goal salvaged a point at the Stadio Renato Dall'Ara, but the threat of relegation is looming large for Sampdoria nonetheless.

La Samp have made themselves an established name in Serie A in recent times. This is their 11th consecutive season in the Italian top flight, and they have only endured one campaign in Serie B since 2003-04. That’s a strong record, but there is a feeling that cracks are appearing for the Serie A stalwarts, and this is reflected in the football odds.

New head coach Dejan Stankovic, an Inter Milan legend in his playing days, was overseeing his first game in charge since Sampdoria sacked Marcio Giampaolo, and the Serbian was encouraged by what he witnessed.

“I’m very happy for the boys – they needed that,” he said. “We showed Bologna a bit too much respect in the first half. But during the half-time break, I said to the players: yes, we’ve conceded, that’s what everyone expected, but now let’s start playing our football again.”

Stankovic’s mission for the rest of the season is to prove that Sampdoria’s slide is reversable, that they are not fighting vainly against the tide. After finishing 15th last term, there were signs that this was a team in decline, and a huge influx of players was subsequently ushered in during the summer transfer window either permanently or on loan. One wonders how long it will take for that many new signings to gel, and whether or not it will be too late for Sampdoria.

But the club’s fate this season might not be defined by failures to bring in the right players, but rather the departure of those who had served them so well. Highly-rated Danish winger Mikkel Damsgaard joined Brentford for a fee of around £13.5 million, while experienced defender Maya

Yoshida left for Schalke. The loss of Damsgaard’s creativity has been felt on the pitch, but there is a symbolic aspect to his departure too — a sense that it is tied in with the club’s overall decay as a force in Serie A.

39-year-old captain Fabio Quagliarella has become a modern Sampdoria icon since joining in 2016, but the former Italy international is in the autumn of his career and there is a sense that, in footballing terms, he too is beginning his journey to the great beyond.

Make no mistake, this is a giant of a club. Sampdoria’s success of the early 1990s, a time when Italian football was being taken to the hearts of many in England and across Europe as a whole, earned them a lot of supporters who still look fondly at the club to this day. Cup Winners’ Cup champions in 1990, Serie A champions in 1991, and European Cup runners-up a year later, this was a team who tasted supremacy.

Today’s version of Sampdoria is an altogether more measured one. A handful of top-half finishes in the last decade are all they have to show for their efforts, and with rivals making advances lately, you can’t help but feel that Sampdoria are being left behind.

Who better than Stankovic to come in and try to shake things up? A gnarly defensive midfield enforcer towards the latter end of his playing days, the 44-year-old should inspire a greater sense of passion and commitment amongst his ranks. Those are qualities that will be needed in abundance.

“We’ve got a huge job on our hands – we can’t give up,” Stankovic added after the draw in Bologna. “This is only a first step, but it’s a first step towards an important objective.”

The objective will be to restore this stumbling giant to their rightful standing. With just under a quarter of the season already gone, Sampdoria’s place in the tapestry of top-level Italian football is on the line.