Lazio vs Sampdoria

[MarieL]

Serie A Preview: Lazio-Sampdoria

01/31/2004. BACKGROUND:

Sunday afternoon's 40th match at the Stadio Olimpico between Lazio and Sampdoria promises to be a highly entertaining one.

In fact, this encounter has always produced a high number of goals, 14 of which were scored in the last two games only. In these two games, the result was 5-2 in favour of Lazio in both occasions and occured in 1998/99 (Serie A) and 2000/01 (Coppa Italia).

However, the highest number of goals registered in this match was in 1995/96 when Lazio won in a spectacular 6-3 result.

In total, there have 39 games played between the two sides, with 21 wins for the biancocelesti, 8 wins for the blucerchiati and 10 matches ended in a draw.

The Sampdoria win happened over 10 years ago when on the 16th of May 1992, Sampdoria won 2-1 in Serie A.


TEAM NEWS:

Lazio - With the sale of Stankovic, Mancini loses an important mifdielder in his tactical set-up; Fiore should take the role of the departing Serbian player. Apart from Stankovic, Lazio is still without Inzaghi who is recovering from his arm injury.

Sampdoria - Novellino will be without Valtolina and most importantly Flachi, who picked up an injury during last weekend's victorious match against Reggina. Sampdoria will be losing flair upfront without the creative forward, however they are still dangerous as ever with Bazzani.


PROBABLE FORMATIONS:

Lazio (4-4-2): Peruzzi; Oddo, Stam, Mihajlovic, Favalli; Fiore, Giannichedda, Liverani, Cesar; Corradi, Lopez

Sampdoria (4-4-2): Antonioli; Zenoni, Conte, Falcone, Bettarini; Diana, Volpi, Donati, Doni; Cipriani, Bazzani


PLAYERS TO WATCH:

Fiore (Lazio): The Italian midfielder will most probably have to take Stankovic's tactical place and will therefore need to be at his best so not to make the Serbian's departure felt too much.

Cipriani (Sampdoria): He wil be substituting Flachi upfront alongside Bazzani. If last Saturday's performance was anything to go by with, Flachi will not be missed.

SA Europe
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I hope Mancini's record against his old team continues. We have a golden opportunity to be only 8 points behind rioma since they managed to lose to Brescia yesterday. Hahahahhahhaa... The downhill has begun!
Forza Lazio! Non mollare mai

[MarieL]

Well it ended 1-1. Fiore scored for us and Bazzani for Sampdoria.
Too bad we still don't seem to be able to score more than once. We so needed the points! Good for us Parma drew as well, I just hope Inter will have trouble with Siena tonight. I'm a huge fan of Siena today!