Wow, I cannot believe it is almost two weeks ago that I posted an article on Scorum. It's been extremely busy for me in my personal life, and then when you come into the situation that you stop posting, it suddenly becomes a challenge to get back into it. Hopefully, this post will at the same time be my comeback to the platform.
What I would like to say, is that it's not that I don't want to be here, or lost interest, not at all, it's the complete opposite. I want to be here, I want to contribute, but it's just been slipping away from me. Now I can, of course, say, that I've been looking for fruit all week long to participate in the @GuiltyParties contest, but that wouldn't be fair towards my wife, who makes sure that we eat our daily portion of fruit. I saw that contest as a potential way to get back into the groove, but when my wife saw me writing Scorum on a lemon, I knew the fun was over.
I really want to start writing more articles again in the near future. Perhaps not immediately back to a post a day, but neither am I aiming to be quiet for another week or longer, because that is just way too long. Exceptional situations can of course always happen, for instance when I'm going on a holiday. These two weeks, however, were just standard weeks, and there was no reason not to write anything if I had made the time available.
What I did do from time to time was visiting the platform. Not as much as I wish to, but still, I showed up and looked around. One of the great happenings I noticed is that I won @broncofan99's English Premier League contest. With that contest, I won a 25 SCR free bet, which I am going to use this weekend. have chosen a less common match with enough liquidity, Sampdoria vs. Cagliari.
Sampdoria
Sampdoria can be currently found in 10th place in the Serie A. So far they gathered 33 points out of 24 matches, and their goal difference is +8. When it comes to that, they are four positions higher in the ranking than their opponents Cagliari in 14th place. Cagliari only collected 24 points in as many matches and should certainly look with fear towards the teams currently ranked lower in the league. They are only three points ahead of the still safe 17th spot, but only six points ahead of the scary 18th place that will relegate your team to the Serie B. There's no doubt Chievo Verona will relegate, but teams like Bologna and Frosinone still have chances to get out of the relegation zone and Cagliari is one of the teams that should be doing their utmost best to avoid being their victim. Sampdoria may still look at the European spots, but they would need to have a really good run in their last 14 games of the season.
Sampdoria will mostly rely on their main striker Fabio Quagliarella. He already scored 16 goals in 23 matches this season and is so to say on fire. Only Cristiano Ronaldo (19) and Krzysztof Piatek (18) scored more goals in the Serie A this season, whereas Daniel Zapata also scored 16 times so far. Quagliarella has, however, not scored in the last three matches he played, and as a matter of fact, Sampdoria ended up losing all three games. It's fair to say that if Quagliarella scores against Cagliari, Sampdoria is likely to win.
Sampdoria will be playing without the injured Edgar Barreto, Gianluca Caprari and Gaston Ramirez. Manolo Gabbiadini came over from Southampton in January and has already scored twice in five matches so far. If Quagliarella fails to find his form back, then the scoring ability of Gabbiadini is another threat for the Cagliari defense.
Cagliari
Joao Pedro is the player who will be missed most by Cagliari in this match. The midfielder played most of the matches this season but will be sidelined due to a suspension. Also, Lucas Castro and Ragnar Klavan would be unable to play. It will be difficult for the Cagliari players to make sure the ball gets to club top goalscorer Leonardo Pavoletti. Whenever he does get the ball in a dangerous area, he is likely to score. So far he managed to do that nine times this season already. Last weekend that was the key factor of the win against Parma. Parma had taken the lead just before half time and was looking to take three points with them. However, with two goals in the second half Pavoletti helped Cagliari to keep these three important points at home.
Form
I already mentioned Sampdoria lost their last three matches in the Serie A. Losing against Inter and Napoli however, is something that can happen, and should not be considered too much of failure from Sampdoria's point of view. Losing at home against Frosinone, on the other hand, should not have happened. Frosinone though is probably the most inconsistent team in the league and can lose massively in one week, and pull off a massive surprise in the following match. Sampdoria has a streak of seven matches in December without a loss (5 wins and 2 draws) until they lost 2-1 to Juventus. Sampdoria will be looking forward to finding that form back in the remainder of the season. Sampdoria has played eleven matches at home so far, with six wins, two draws, and three losses.
Cagliari's win over Parma last weekend was their first win in 2019. The last win of 2018 was on Boxing Day when they won 1-0 at home to the other team from Sampdoria's city, Genoa. Since then they lost five matches and only drew one against Empoli until they won that match against Parma. Cagliari's biggest problem is to win points in matches on the road. Early in the season, they did win away, against Atalanta, however since then they only managed a draw three times, the other eight matches were lost, all of them with at least a 2-goal difference.
Bets
For me, all signals point into the direction of a home win. Cagliari really struggles on the road and I don't see any reason why that would be different this time around. I honestly think that Sampdoria will win it by at least two goals difference, and I also think that having three scoring strikers in this match, there will be at least three goals.
My 25 SCR @broncofan99 Free Bet will go towards a Sampdoria win.
At the same time, will invest 5 SCR of myself on a match in which more than 2.5 goals are scored.
That's it for now, I'm happy to be back on track! Thanks for reading!
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