A boisterous home crowd roared on the Sampdoria players, as they looked to begin digging themselves out of a relegation hole. While they faced newly-promoted opposition, the game was locked into a stalemate from the off. Perhaps the best chance of the opening interval came just past the half-hour mark when Gabriel Strefezza saw his free-kick effort flash past the post, narrowly missing a chance to take the lead and stun those inside the Stadio Luigi Ferraris.
While it looked for all the world to be winding down towards a deadlock at the break, the match was flipped on its head in stoppage time, when Lorenzo Colombo collected the ball in behind the Sampdoria defence, and dispatched a venomous effort with aplomb to snatch the lead for Lecce with the last kick of the half.
Staring down the barrel of a fourth consecutive defeat, La Samp upped the tempo in search of an equaliser. However, a Samuel Umititi-led Lecce rearguard proved to be too tough to puncture for the hosts. To make matters worse, Lecce doubled their lead on the break in the final 10 minutes, when Colombo picked out the streaking run of second half substitute Lameck Banda, who dinked the ball over the keeper on the run to drive the final nail into Sampdoria’s coffin.
Alarm bells will be ringing in Genoa for La Samp, as the result sees Nenad Sakić’s men remain with a measly tally of one victory from their first 16 league games, and drifting four points from safety.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Lorenzo Colombo (US Lecce)
