The Derby della Lanterna is one of the most visually stunning fixtures in world football.

Genoa’s distinctive red and blue in one corner, with Sampdoria’s iconic red, blue and white bands in the other.

But with the Blucerchiati barely escaping relegation to Serie C last term, Genoa as a club and a city will have to wait at least until next season for a new instalment of the rivalry.

Step forward Virtus Entella, dressed like Argentina in their light blue and white tops.

With the notable exception of Naples, no city in Italy can claim such a strong bond with Argentina as Genoa.

It was a group of five Genoese who founded Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires back in 1905. Boca’s Xeneises nickname comes from the word Zeneixi, Genoese dialect for ‘people from Genoa’, which features on the back of a special kit Genoa released in April to celebrate Boca’s 120th anniversary. 

Blue and yellow, the shirt evokes memories of La Bombonera.

As does Entella’s and there was a chromatic contrast as Sampdoria travelled 30 miles down the A12 motorway for a Ligurian derby.

“We don’t have cousins,” proclaims a giant tifo flag in the Gradinata Sud at Marassi whenever the Blucerchiati play at home. It may seem an odd message but in Italy, teams that share the same city are referred to as cousins. 

Entella aren’t so much a cousin, more an extended family member only seen at major celebrations. The type who only appears in group photos at a wedding.

With a capacity of just over 5,000, the Enrico Sannazzari is Serie B’s third-smallest ground but what it lacks in capacity it more than made up for in noise as Entella beat Sampdoria 3-1 under the lights on Friday night.

The rickety old ground creaked and shook as Entella raced into a two-goal lead in the first half before sealing all three points seven minutes from time to extinguish any faint hopes of a Samp comeback. 

Entella are somewhat of an anomaly in Italian football. They are not even named after their hometown but after the river that runs through it.

Chiavari in itself is a curious dichotomy, technically part of Genoa’s greater metropolitan area but almost desperate to distance itself from the Ligurian capital and its overwhelming influence.

The city markets itself as the gateway to the Tigullio Gulf, which includes Portofino, Italy’s answer to Monaco, and the Cinque Terre with its stunning backdrops and narrow streets overflowing with tourists.

On Friday night, it was the locals who were out in force, blue and white scarves in bars and pizzerias as Sampdoria arrived in town. This was a special occasion and so it proved over 90 raucous minutes at the Sannazzari. 

And to think that for a long while, aside from Entella, Chiavari’s biggest contribution to football was Giuseppe Garibaldi, the revolutionary who spearheaded Italy’s unification campaign in 1861.

A native of Chiavari, Garibaldi’s army was known as the Redshirts because of their distinctive uniforms, a hue which has since been adopted by Nottingham Forest, who play in Garibaldi Red. 

Over the past six years local company Wyscout went from ambitious startup to giant of the world of football analytics, and their services are used by the biggest clubs in the world.

Data and analysis may be at the core of Chiavari’s most famous company now, but the circumstances beyond Entella’s colours remain curiously murky.

Wisdom has it that the club adopted the blue and white following a suggestion from Sannazzari. One of the thousands of Ligurians who emigrated to South America, Sannazzarri was among Entella’s founders in 1914 after he returned to Italy and chose the colours as a tribute to Argentina’s national team.

So far, so beautifully poignant, particularly when you consider that according to the club records Sannazzarri was Entella’s first member, first captain and scorer of their first goal. 

Except that version is contested by Chiavari’s city council. The city contends there are no records of Sannazzarri ever visiting South America prior to founding Entella – he subsequently died in Peru – and that the colours were simply adopted as a result of the bond Chiavari had developed with the continent following a wave of Italian migration.

Yet he remains an iconic figure for the club, who last season released a special shirt commemorating his memory to mark its 110th anniversary.

The kit featured a light blue sash on a white background, with an ace of spades replacing Entella’s badge, a nod to Sannazzarri’s nickname that was cast onto him after he stitched a patch featuring a decorative ace of spades onto his shirt to fix a rip during his playing days.

How apt then that Sampdoria folded like a pack of cards in the stadium bearing Sannazzarri’s name.

This was the Blucerchiati’s first competitive meeting with their Ligurian rivals. For decades, they have inhabited different realities.

One won six trophies in 10 years at the zeitgeist of Italian football, the other bounced around calcio’s lower tiers.

When Sampdoria kicked off their decade of success in 1985, Entella were celebrating promotion to Serie C2, then the fourth tier of the pyramid, with a couple of future Italy managers on their books.

Giampiero Ventura sat in the dugout, while Luciano Spalletti plied his trade in midfield.

How times have changed. Saved only by Brescia’s demise last term, on the basis of what they showed on Friday, Samp are sinking without trace again. With five points from eight games they are circling the drain. 

Defeat by Entella, as Genoa’s newspaper Il Secolo XIX noted on Saturday morning, was one of Sampdoria’s lowest ebbs. And there have been plenty to choose from over the past 12 months alone. 

Defiance in the away end swiftly gave way to resignation and then anger. At Massimo Donati, who looks out of his depth as a manager, and at his players, but mostly at the club.

The tifo flags hung forlornly in the away end and were then furled back before the final whistle.

There was a time when Sampdoria had Argentina’s finest in their line-up in the shape of Juan Sebastian Veron and Ariel Ortega.But now, the sight of the Albiceleste will only evoke memories of yet another dismal night.