Samp at the double ahead of Serie A opener against Empoli

Sampdoria stepped up preparations for their Serie A curtain-raiser against Empoli with a double session at the training ground on Wednesday.

Marco Giampaolo split the squad into groups for position-specific work in the morning then brought his charges back together for technical and tactical drills after lunch.

The team will meet again on Thursday afternoon for the last open training session of the week, before working behind closed doors on Friday and Saturday.