When Chievo broke the news to Christian Puggioni that an offer had come in for him and they were going to accept it, his response wasn’t exactly what they wanted to hear. A deal they considered done all of a sudden had to be undone. The club bidding for Puggioni was Genoa. Born in the city, his parent’s apartment is but a stone’s throw away from Marassi and one of his first possessions, a gift he still cherishes to this day, was a scarf knitted by his doting grandmother. The thread she used was dyed blue, white, red and black; the colours of Genoa’s greatest rivals, Sampdoria.

“Anywhere,” Puggioni told Chievo, “just not there.” The veteran couldn’t do it to himself, nor to his Genoa supporting friends. Playing for them, the team he could never love, the team for whom he could never bring himself to give his all, would in his opinion have been to show a lack of respect far graver than being honest and true to himself. He could never take their money and Puggioni's unwillingness to do so caused a problem for Chievo. His decision went downworse with them than it did with Genoa.

They froze Puggioni out of their first team squad. Made to train on his own on those cold, often snowy winter afternoons in Verona, as it got dark, Chievo wouldn’t even turn the floodlights on for him. A prisoner of conscience, word of his refusal and the consequences it’d had for Puggioni soon reached his fellow Sampdoria supporters. When Chievo travelled to Marassi to play Samp that season, the ultras in the Gradinata Sud unfurled a banner to show their solidarity. “Honour to those who respect their first love,” it read. “Puggioni, one of us.” Although he trained by himself, this small gesture ensured he did not feel alone.

Made aware of the matter, the league intervened and in the end the court of arbitration ruled Chievo must not only reintegrate Puggioni but compensate him as well. It was clear, however, that he could not stay at the club. At 34, Puggioni presumably could have left for a starting role either in a newly promoted club or a second division side. Instead, he went home. Samp offered Puggioni the fairytale ending to his career; a place in their squad as the club’s third choice goalkeeper and with it the chance to see out his final days as a professional in the most romantic way possible.

All of this happened the summer before last. Puggioni's job was essentially to pass on what it meant to represent Sampdoria to the team’s younger players, mentor Emiliano Viviano’s back-up Alberto Brignoli and be one of those unseen dressing room leaders. But come the beginning of this season, the club had a decision to make. Brignoli’s loan from Juventus had ended and, in order to get him more game-time, they sent the 25-year-old to Leganés instead. Samp thought long and hard about bringing in a replacement for him. In the end, however, they concluded why bother when they had Puggioni. Destiny's grand design for him gradually began to reveal itself.

Last weekend, Viviano hurt his wrist while making a save from Pescara striker Gianluca Caprari. A scan showed damage to the scaphoid and led Samp's doctor Amedeo Baldari to rule him out for 10 days. At 35, Puggioni's chance to make his debut for Samp had arrived. It had been a long time coming. As a boy, when school was out and his shifts as a manual labourer hauling sacks of cement finished, he attended their academy, rising through the ranks all the way to the first team where he competed for a place with Matteo Sereni.

Fortune did not favour him, however, and Puggioni never got an opportunity to defend their goal. He was sent to third division Varese and it was there that his own personal Odyssey began. The prospect of returning to Samp, his Ithaca, appeared feint indeed. And yet here Puggioni was; about to make his bow in Blucerchiato and not just in any game either, but the biggest game of all for a follower of Sampdoria; up next were Genoa, the team he rejected out of love for a rival, the Derby della Lanterna.

Puggioni was to become the first goalkeeper from the port city to play for Samp in this fixture since Sarin di Vincenzo, his old maestro in the academy, who is unfortunately remembered for letting in a goal from Genoa striker Roberto Pruzzo in 1977 that would not only end the Grifone's 10-year wait for a win in this rivalry but contribute to his team's relegation to Serie B. "Seeing my pupil emerge from this game unbeaten would be revenge enough for me," di Vincenzo said.

In the warm up on Saturday evening, Puggioni couldn't help himself joining in with the Samp fans as they sang the club's anthem. The atmosphere at Marassi was like a SuperClásico in Argentina; ticker tape rained down on the pitch, flags as big as sails were waved as each Gradinata became a groove armada. Pockets of fans lit flares and clouds of smoke descended on the goal-mouth. There were 10 South Americans on the pitch. And one Genovese.

The pressure on Puggioni, coach Marco Giampaolo and his team was immense as they approached this fixture. Samp had taken just two points from the last 12 available in Serie A and were having great difficulty scoring goals. The hand of the Grim Relegator was on their shoulder. Genoa on the other came into this as huge favourites. If they had won the game abandoned for bad weather against Fiorentina, they would have gone into this derby in fourth place. Hitherto this season, their defence had been as watertight as Juventus', shipping just five goals.

Few gave Samp a chance. But form goes out the window on derby day and this one had absolutely everything. Samp managed get in front through Luis Muriel. It wasn't long before levelled thanks to Luca Rigoni. His teammate Goran Pandev then thought he had given his side the lead, scrambling in a rebound after a magnificent save by Puggioni only to be ruled offside.

The woodwork was made to throb four times. Mattia Perin stopped Fabio Quagliarella from the penalty spot and denied Samp the feel-good factor of heading into the dressing room at half-time 2-1 up. Immediately after the interval Quagliarella very nearly redeemed himself, and moments later, in the 47th minute their pressure told in the most heartbreaking fashion for Genoa defender Armando Izzo who got the winner, not for his team, but for Samp.

Pushing forward to grab an equaliser, Genoa rolled the dice, gambling on talismanic striker, Leonardo Pavoletti, who went up front with Diego Simeone's son Giovanni. "Not Vodka, Nor Mojitos, we get drunk on El Cholito," a banner in the Gradinata Nord laughed.  Puggioni downed one shot from Pavogol and knocked back another from Nicola Ninkovic in injury time. The port city boy held them at bay and Samp unexpectedly clinched victory.