Sampdoria were eliminated from the tournament and then suffered a 3-0 defeat at Atalanta in the following league fixture.

In this game, Di Francesco made a lot of rotations, and the main players, including Gao Zheng, basically did not appear on the field.

This is the team's fourth consecutive defeat in the league, which can be considered the team's worst result since promotion to the first division.

Coupled with the elimination from the Champions League, Sampdoria seems to be shrouded in a thick layer of clouds, and the sun is completely impenetrable, making people feel oppressive and suffocated.

By this time, Sampdoria had dropped to 11th place in the league, just one point ahead of city rivals Genoa.

This delighted the fans of the city's rivals.

When Sampdoria won the Coppa Italia, they were really depressed and had to endure the ridicule of the Sampdoria fans every day.

But now it's their turn to raise their eyebrows. Even though they didn't do much well, they were happy to see their city rivals unlucky.

If they can overtake Sampdoria in the league next, it will be perfect.

But what they didn't realize was that being eliminated from the Champions League wasn't necessarily a bad thing for Sampdoria to play in the league......

In this way, Sampdoria can finally not fight on multiple fronts this season - the Italian Cup has been played, Sampdoria has won the championship, the Champions League is gone, only the league remains, Sampdoria does not have to rotate, nor does it have to give up the league and focus on the Champions League.

How scary is a Sampdoria team that can give it their all in the league?

A week later, in the 29th round of the league, Sampdoria hosted Verona, in this game, Gao Zheng, who had not played at all in the last game, appeared in the starting lineup, in addition to him, other Sampdoria main players also restarted.

The match is at home to Sampdoria.

Despite four consecutive league defeats and a Champions League exit, the Malassi Stadium was packed – a way for Sampdoria fans to support their team.

In fact, the elimination of the Champions League did not make Sampdoria fans dissatisfied with the team's performance. You must know that no one could have imagined that Sampdoria could go this far in the Champions League before the season, and the result in the round of 16 is already very surprising. As Sampdoria fans, they all know the quality of their team, so they don't have any unrealistic expectations for the team, and they are already satisfied that the team can play to the knockout stage and play at the home of Atletico Madrid until the end.

That's why they returned to the airport to greet the team and treat them like triumphant heroes.

In this home league, they also showed their support for the team with practical actions.

Before the game even started, their singing was already resounding over the Marassi Stadium.

And as a reward for such enthusiastic and selfless support for the fans, just four minutes after the opening, Gao Zheng took the lead for Sampdoria with a long-range shot from outside the penalty area!

"Oh! High! High!! He scored in the opening four minutes! It looks like he's going to feel really good with his shots in this game! ”

After the goal, Gao Zheng ran to the south stand where Sampdoria fans gathered, and bowed to them with his hand on his chest.

Gao used such a celebration to express his apologies to the fans, who were eliminated from the Champions League and who were knocked out of the Champions League and who were on a four-game losing streak in the league. But he didn't have to, because he was good enough! Caresa sighed when she saw this scene.

The Sampdoria fans in the stands also saw it the same way, and they responded to Gao Zheng with the same gesture - thousands of people touched their chests with their hands and bowed to Gao Zheng in return.

They were unwilling to accept Gao Zheng's apology, because Gao Zheng didn't owe them anything at all.

Instead, they need to apologize to Gao Zheng in turn - if they hadn't stayed at Sampdoria, they believe Gao Zheng would have achieved more this season. When the club lost its old chairman and Icardi resolutely left, Gao Zheng chose to stay out of his feelings for the team and the fans...... So it was Sampdoria who dragged him down, not that he was sorry for Sampdoria.

This season, because of the multi-front battle, Sampdoria could not come up with a deep enough bench lineup to support, so they could only take rotation, resulting in Gao Zheng only scoring 16 league goals until now, behind Icardi, who has already scored 18 goals, in the league scorer list.

Last season's league Golden Boot, now after 29 rounds of league play, only 16 goals have been scored, which is really far from his performance last season. But this is not because Gao Zheng's ability has declined, but because he has been rotated to the bench too many times this season.

So much so that Icardi, who is now very unhappy with Sampdoria fans, scored eighteen goals and ranked first in the scorer list because he could only play in the league.

If it weren't for Sampdoria, I believe Gao Zheng wouldn't have let Icardi be so rampant at all......

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Gao Zheng's goal set the tone for the game and made a good start, allowing all the Sampdoria players to put down their nervousness.

The game was taken over by Sampdoria and completely fell into the rhythm of Sampdoria.

In the 23rd minute, Berardi received an assist from Gao Zheng and rewrote the score to 2:0.

Just before the end of the first half, captain Palombo scored a goal to make it 3-0, and Sampdoria led Verona by three goals in the first half.

In the face of Sampdoria's aggressive attack, Verona could only shrink into their own 30-metre area to survive.

Before the game, they had hoped to beat Sampdoria at home to Sampdoria, who are currently in poor form and have lost four consecutive league games.

Hellas Verona currently have 24 points, just one more than Bologna, who are third from bottom, and it can be said that relegation is not a safe thing.

With ten rounds left in the league, they also need to fight for relegation.

And the relegation team is very difficult to mess with.

As a result, the dream was shattered after only four minutes.

They were three goals down in the first half, how can they play this game?

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The second half of the game had just begun, and in the 48th minute, Gao Zheng once again broke through Verona's goal.

"Gao Zheng! Brace! Now his personal league tally has risen to seventeen, just one goal away from Icardi! Liu Hong is very happy, because during this time, Sampdoria was busy with the Champions League and the Italian Cup, and did not pay enough attention to the league, and Gao Zheng has not started and scored in the league many times. This made him very depressed when he was in charge of commentating on the Serie A league.

The Champions League was lively, and Gao Zheng also scored a hat trick in Calderon, but it was explained by his colleague He Ping, and it had nothing to do with him.

Gao Zheng, who has already scored two goals, has not stopped pursuing goals.

Finally, in the 58th minute, he scored a hat-trick from Verona with a beautiful direct free-kick, and he also equalled Icardi in the scorers' charts.

"Oh hehe!! Hat-trick! Hat-trick! Gao's state today is simply so good! Prior to this game, Gao was three goals behind Icardi in the scorers' charts, and a single game of high erased the gap between them! Caresa said excitedly.

After winning the Coppa Italia and being knocked out of the Champions League, what else can be talked about in Sampdoria as a team?

Of course, it's the battle for the league's golden boot.

Previously, when Sampdoria was fighting on multiple fronts, Icardi was full of firepower at Inter Milan, scoring 18 goals, surpassing Gao Zheng to the top of the scorer list.

This made many people see the opportunity for Icardi to pull Gao Zheng off the throne.

Of course, they all hope that someone can challenge Gao Zheng, lest Gao Zheng continue to be crazy.

Leading by three goals on the scorer list can also be regarded as safe, but I didn't expect Gao Zheng to eliminate the gap in one game.

Those who were waiting to see Icardi pick off Gao Zheng's show were surprised and disappointed.

But Caresa doesn't think so, the tie doesn't mean the competition ends here, and with Gao Zheng now able to turn his focus back to the league, the competition between him and Icardi will definitely become more and more fierce - when Icardi sees Gao Zheng's performance today, it must be impossible to be indifferent, right?

In addition to this round of games, there are nine rounds left in the league, which is another highlight in addition to the championship battle and the relegation battle.

If Gao Zheng just let Icardi ride away, Caressa would be very disappointed.