Wed. August 3, 2022
Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. Sampdoria (Italy Serie A)
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK
Sampdoria are the FOUR-TIME consecutive Serie A champions so they are on a serious roll. They are loaded with excellent players.
Only
Zoltan Bardi among potential starters is still trying to regain full fitness and he'll start up front with
Paul Moses today.
Gian Marco Fanfoni and
Graham Allan are in the midfield and
Carlos Guzman and
Mohamed Lamine Yilmaz are on defence today.
Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - I. Wilke
D - C. Guzman, M. Yilmaz, R. Hamon, S. Loucif
M - A. Bamba, G. Fanfoni, A. Rocca, G. Allan
S - P. Moses, Z. Bardi
Dover 1 - 1 Sampdoria
Goals - Zoltan Bardi (7.2)
Assists - Paul Moses (7.3)
Man of the Match - Ingo Wilke (8.0)
Other Dover Notables - Salim Loucif (7.1)
Attendance - 15,863
We lacked great scoring chances but we play well with a half-strength lineup against a world powerhouse in Sampdoria. Possession was dead even and they outshot us 20-17 (10-8 on target). I'm not overly impressed with Graham Allan so far but it's early.
-- The injury bug continues to bite us, as our goal scorer
Zoltan Bardi twists his ankle and will miss about 3 weeks of action.
International Duty
-- Ten of our players are called up for international friendlies.
Marcel Quade from our U18 club is called up by Austria's U21s and
Kostas Kalfas (Greece U21) and
Carlos Guzman (Argentina U20) also get youth callups. As for senior team players,
Manuel Perez (Mexico),
Said Henni &
Salim Loucif (Algeria),
Gianluca Bolis (Italy),
Arsene Bamba &
Daniel Traore (Ivory Coast) and
Paulus Tjiuoro (Namibia) get the call from their countries.
Transfer IN
-- We are a bit lacking in depth on the right wing with the departure of
Kostas Kalfas on loan so I add a talented 18 year old prospect in Bulgarian
Lyubomir Kunchev, who comes to Dover in a £1.9 million deal with AS Saint-Etienne in France.
He's nothing super special but he'll play for our stacked U18 team and be available should the need arise.
Next Up
-- We host Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid in our last preseason friendly at Crabble Athletic Ground, with only a road matchup against non-league Margate to come.