Giampaolo sees it how it is: “Poor start, we gifted goals to an opponent on a different level”

Marco Giampaolo gave an upfront and extremely honest assessment of his team’s defeat against the Bianconeri at Juventus Stadium this evening.

“Juventus are on a different level in every respect: physical, technical and experience,” the Blucerchiati boss admitted. “These are tough games but you need to be honest and say that there’s a difference between ourselves and them.

“We should be angry at ourselves for the way we started and we could have done better at 2-1, when there was a small opportunity to get back into the contest. We gifted them the third and fourth goals, which slammed the door shut.”

Sampdoria’s starting line-up featured many changes before kick-off, maybe even too many.

“I needed fresh legs tonight,” Giampaolo insisted. “If I hadn’t made changes, I would have destroyed my players physically. We had a lot of young players out there and they showed their impressive ability. This was a good experience which will serve them in the future.

“Budimir and Schick had put a lot into the game because Juve force you to run loads,” Sampdoria’s coach concluded, explaining his decision to change personnel in attack after getting back into the game. “I threw on Muriel and Quagliarella to try and give us a chance of staying in the game, but Pjanic’s goal ended any hopes of a comeback.”

You can hear more from the coach in the subtitled video below.