Cagliari continued their impressive season with a 4-3 win at home against Sampdoria this past weekend to stay ahead of AS Roma in 4th place on goal difference. Down 0-2 and 1-3, they fought back and won it in stoppage time through super-sub Alberto Cerri’s 96th minute header.
The final score being this much higher than xG tends to either be due to goalkeeper error or great finishing, and this game certainly had the latter. After Fabio Quagliarella opened the scoring with a penalty kick, Gaston Ramirez and Radja Nainggolan traded tremendous strikes and Quagliarella added the best of the bunch to give Sampdoria their two goal cushion. Joao Pedro’s quickfire double leveled things up before Cerri’s powerful header deep into stoppage time crushed Claudio Ranieri and Sampdoria hearts.
Sampdoria actually did quite well after giving up their two goal lead, only allowing two shots by Cagliari in the final 20 minutes, and had just as good a chance to retake the lead. The result though leaves them hovering just above Genoa and the relegation zone.
The win percentage and goal difference plots show us just how unfortunate Sampdoria was. Cagliari just about edged it in the run of play, but Sampdoria’s penalty kick gave them the much higher likelihood of coming away with three points. In fact, it was much more likely that they won by two goals than to lose by the odd goal in seven. A few more performances like this, especially away from home, should mean that Claudio Ranieri’s team are not near the relegation zone for much longer.
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