Samp impress in pre-season friendly, goals from Muriel and Quagliarella sink Chievo

Three days on from their limp display against Feralpisalo, Sampdoria produced a great performance full of intensity, pace and bright ideas against Chievo Verona, earning a well-deserved 2-0 win.

Marco Giampaolo opted for Ricky Alvarez behind Fabio Quagliarella and Luis Muriel in attack, and it was the Colombian forward who opened the scoring after 18 minutes. His strike partner laid on the assist and Muriel beat Stefano Sorrentino with a superb diagonal shot. Two minutes before half-time, Muriel returned the favour and set Quagliarella up for a fine finish to make it 2-0.

The mass substitutions had an effect on the tempo of the contest in the second half, with play getting bogged down in midfield. Doria were happy merely to keep hold of possession, although this meant the new trio in attack of Ante Budimir, Antonio Cassano and Patrik Schick had little in the way of service. When the ball did reach them up front, Sorrentino showed sharp reflexes to turn away their efforts.

There are numerous positives to take away from this friendly, not least the promising debut of new Blucerchiati signing Karol Linetty.

Pre-season football can often be difficult to predict. The hope is that Samp use this performance as the blueprint for the campaign ahead.

Sampdoria 2-0 Chievo Verona (HT: 2-0)

Scorers: Muriel 18, Quagliarella 43.

Sampdoria (4-3-1-2): Puggioni (Tozzo 45); De Silvestri (Skriniar 77), Silvestre, Regini, Sala (Pereira 58); Ivan (Palombo 71), Torreira (Linetty 77), Eramo; Alvarez (Schick 45); Quagliarella (Cassano 65), Muriel (Budimir 57).
Subs: Krapikas, Djuricic, Vrioni.
Coach: Marco Giampaolo.

Chievo Verona p.t. (4-3-1-2): Sorrentino; Cacciatore, Gamberini (Dainelli 45), Spolli (Cesar 45), Gobbi (Frey 45); Castro (Da Silva 60), Radovanovic (Costa 69), Hetemaj (Cinelli 60); Mpoku (Izco 45); Meggiorini (Jallow 69), Inglese (Pellissier 45).
Subs: Bressan, Seculin, Sardo, Bobb, Birsa, Damian, Depaoli.
Coach: Rolando Maran.