Today in Serie A – April 20, 1994: Sampdoria Won the Coppa Italia Beating a Serie B Side | OneFootball

It was Sampdoria’s last trophy to date. The Blucerchiati conquered the Coppa Italia in the 1993/94 season on April 20, 1994, beating Serie B side Ancona 6-1 in the second leg of the final, played at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium. Back then, the Italian Cup was still contested over two legs, and the first match in Ancona had ended 0-0.

Ancona remain the last club to have reached the Coppa Italia final while playing in the second division. They only featured in Serie A twice—during the 1992/93 and 2003/04 seasons. Since then, the Biancorossi have endured some challenging years, going through multiple bankruptcies before being revived this past summer and restarting from Serie D.

In that Coppa Italia final, they managed to hold Sampdoria goalless for 135 minutes. When the referee blew for half-time in the second leg in Genoa, the score was still 0-0. But then, the Blucerchiati’s talent inevitably made the difference and opened a gap that widened dramatically as Ancona’s fairy tale turned into a brutal hammering.

It could not have ended any differently. Only three years earlier, Sampdoria had won their only, historic Scudetto. Even though Gianluca Vialli had since moved to Juventus and Roberto Mancini was unavailable that night, the team’s backbone remained solid. Italy’s keeper Gianluca Pagliuca was in goal, England international David Platt shone in midfield, and, if that weren’t enough, former Milan legends Ruud Gullit and Alberico Evani had recently joined the club. The manager was Sven-Göran Eriksson who, at 46, was already a Serie A veteran, having coached in the Italian peninsula for many years.

Sampdoria got the job done by scoring six times in the space of 35 minutes (!) as future Crystal Palace fan favorite Attilio Lombardo bagged a brace and finished as the competition’s top scorer. They lifted the Coppa Italia for the fourth time in their history – one of the last joys for a glorious club that is currently struggling to avoid relegation to Serie C…