Kownacki: “Special goal to take us through to the next round”

At times it seemed like the goal wasn’t going to come, but thankfully Dawid Kownacki stepped up with just minutes remaining to find the back of the net and send Samp through to the Coppa Italia last 16.

“It was a really important goal for me,” said the Polish striker, who also scored in the fourth round of last year’s competition. “I wanted to score at all costs and perhaps I could have got more – there were a lot of chances. At the end of the day, what counts is that I stuck it away and we avoided added time. We have another league game in three days so it was vital that we got it done inside 90 minutes.”

Kownacki celebrated by shoving the ball under his jersey – and the Pole made an important announcement after the game.

“I’ve been waiting for the chance to score because I wanted to let everyone know that my partner is expecting,” he revealed. “I really wanted to score and use the celebration to tell everyone that I was going to have a child.”