Joachim Andersen: Sampdoria's Answer to Milan Škriniar

Finding undiscovered talents is something that football’s smaller clubs have to do to survive. While the giants of the sport can spend lavishly on the best players in the world, those with much smaller budgets need to be shrewder in their recruiting.

Italian side Sampdoria is one of those clubs, and the Doriani have found an abundance of football talent recently for excellent bargains, such as Mauro Icardi, Shkodran Mustafi, Roberto Soriano, Lucas Torreira, and Patrik Schick.

From March 2009 until June 2011, as well as another spell from July 2014 until June 2018, the club’s chief scout Riccardo Pecini discovered such prospects, and the latest one of his discoveries to emerge is a young Dane that he scouted in the Eredivisie.

Joachim Andersen has emerged as one of the brightest young talents in Serie A and the young centre-back has attracted the interest of some of Europe’s biggest clubs.