International fansite Genoa CFC
Tonight at 20.45 hours Genoa plays the first match in Serie A of the season 2009-2010 in Luigi Ferraris against A.S. Roma. Mr. Gasperini selected the following 21 players:
GOALKEEPERS: Amelia, Scarpi
DEFENDERS: Biava, Criscito, Esposito, Fatic, Moretti, Sokratis, Tomovic
MIDFIELDERS: Kharja, Juric, Mesto, Milanetto, Modesto, Rossi, Zapater
STRIKERS: Crespo, El Shaarawy, Figueroa, Palacio, Sculli
Tonight Genoa beat Odense BK by 3-1 in the first match of the Play-offs to qualify to the Europa League. With the injured strikers Crespo, Floccari, Jankovic and Palladino our coach Mr. Gasperini did not had a lot of choices between the strikers in his team. Genoa started with the following 3-4-3 line-up: Amelia; Biava, Moretti, Bocchetti; Mesto, Milanetto, Juric, Criscito; Palacio, Figueroa and Sculli. In front of 21.889 supporters Genoa started very agressive and already after 8 minutes Emilano Moretti with the help of a Danish defender scored the openinggoal: 1-0. In the rest of the first half our red and blue team was several times close to 2-0, but on the other side Odense hit the crossbar once. In the first 11 minutes of the second half Lucho Figueroa scored twice in front of his fans in Gradinata Nord. The 2-0 was a classical header of a central-striker:
The third goal was also made by Figueroa after Sculli hit the crossbar and Biava’s rebound was blocked by goalkeeper Carroll towards Figueroa who did not think for a second: 3-0. The joy lasted only 2 minutes when Gislason brought the 3-1 on the scoreboard. After the goal of Odense both teams had some changes, but the match ended with 3-1 and a heavy ankle-injury of our young defender Salvatore Bocchetti. The return is next week in Odense with a Dutch referee: Björn Kuipers.
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Thursdaynight at 20.45 hours all Genoa-fans in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam can watch the first Europa League play-off match Genoa – Odense BK in the Sattelite Sportscafé in the city-centre of Amsterdam (Leidseplein, next to Bulldog).
In Spain Genoa has beaten Villarreal, the topteam of Spain that reached the quarterfinals of Champions League last season in which they were beaten by Arsenal. Genoa missed all their international players (including Mimmo Criscito who played his first match in the Squadra Azzura) that played with their national team yesterday. In the 1st half Giuseppe Sculli scored the first goal with a header and just after halftime Hernan Crespo doubled the score. Villarreal scored by penalty their goal: 1-2 and Hernan Crespo missed a penalty that was deserved by captain Marco Rossi 20 minutes before the end. The victory 1 week before the match in Europa League against Odense BK is very important to Mr. Gasperini and his staff after the 0-3 defeat against Olympique Nice 2 weeks ago.
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In the meanwhile Anthony Vanden Borre was rent to Porthsmouth (Premier league), so this season there is no Dutch or Belgian player in the team of Genoa.
Yesterday Genoa presented the list of 25 players that represent the team in the play-offs of Europa League on 20th and 27th August against Odense BK. Because of the virus of Palladino and the injuries of Floccari and Jankovic our coach Mr. Gasperini and his staff only had 3 healthy forwards left in the team. For this reason Luciano Figueroa was asked to stay a little longer in Italy, which he accepted. The list of 25 players, including 4 yougsters* that raised in the youth of Genoa which is an obligation of Uefa:
GOALKEEPERS: Marco Amelia, Danilo Russo*, Alessio Scarpi
DEFENDERS: Giuseppe Biava, Salvatore Bocchetti, Domenico Criscito*, Andrea Esposito, Ivan Fatic, Alessio Grea*, Emiliano Moretti, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Nenad Tomovic
MIDFIELDERS: Mattia Ferraro*, Ivan Juric, Houssine Kharja, Giandomenico Mesto, Francesco Modesto, Omar Milanetto, Marco Rossi, Alberto Zapater
FORWARDS: Hernan Crespo, Luciano Figueroa, Sergio Floccari, Rodrigo Palacio, Giuseppe Sculli
The 2 substitutes are the young forwards: Stephan El Shaarawy and Dejan Lazarevic
After 2 matches without scoring a goal, since yesterday Genoa knows how to score again. Our red and blue team beat Pro Vercelli (Serie C-2) by 0-6 with goals of Sculli (2), Crespo (2), Juric and Figueroa. The friendly Argentinian returned in the team of Mr. Gasperini because both Sergio Floccari and Bosko Jankovic are heavily injured and nearly sure not able to play against Odense. Because also Raffaele Palladino is not recovered yet of his misterious virus, Mr. Gasperini has only 3 line-up forwards left in his team: Sculli, Crespo and Palacio. With Figueroa (wants to return to Argentina) and El Shaarawy (only 16 years) we have 2 substitutes but maybe Genoa returns on the transfermarket.
Without underrating Odense BK (Denmark) we can be happy with this opponent in the play-off in Europa League. Genoa was divided in the 6th poule with the following 5 seeded possible opponents: Zenit St. Petersburg (Uefa-Cup winner in 2008), Aston Villa, Steaua Boekarest, Sparta Praag and Odense BK. The drawing gave us Odense BK, the last seeded team at number 38, just 0.308 points above Genoa on the 40th position. The first match is on Thursday 20th August in Luigi Ferraris, the return 1 week later in the Danish city of Hans Christian Andersen, 750 kilometres of Amsterdam.
Tomorrow in Nyon the drawing of the playoff round of Europa League takes place at 13.30 hours. The 38 strongest teams with the highest ranking play against the 38 teams with the lowest ranking. Because Uefa decided that the points of the team itselves this year are more important than the points of the country, Genoa is ranked at the 40th position with 12.582 points, which means we have to play first at home at 20th August against one of the following teams (in order of ranking):
01. Werder Bremen (91.339); 02. Villarreal (80.853); 03. Roma (78.582); 04. PSV(75.826); 05. Šjaktar Donetsk (74.370); 06. Zenit St. Petersburg (68.525); 07. Hamburg (67.339); 08. Benfica (64.292); 09. Valencia (59.853); 10. Ajax (54.826); 11. Steaua Boekarest (53.781); 12. Fenerbahçe (52.445); 13. Basel (51.050); 14. Lille (47.033); 15. Everton (35.899); 16. Club Brugge (34.065); 17. Heerenveen (33.826); 18. Galatasaray (33.445); 19. Austria Wien (31.565); 20. Lazio (26.582); 21. Hertha BSC (26.339); 22. Sparta Praag (26.150); 23. Dinamo Boekarest (25.781); 24. AEK Athene (25.633); 25. Slavia Praag (25.150); 26. Metalist (24.370); 27. Aston Villa (23.899); 28. Athletic Bilbao (23.853); 29. FK Partizan Belgrado (23.050); 30. Hapoel Tel Aviv (18.050); 31. Twente (17.826); 32. Dinamo Zagreb (16.466); 33. Litex Lovech (16.250); 34. Fulham (15.899); 35. CSKA Sofia (14.250); 36. Toulouse FC (14.033); 37. CFR Cluj (13.781); 38. Odense (12.890).
Because Genoa can not play against one of the other Italian teams: Roma and Lazio we have 36 possible opponents including 4 Dutch: PSV, Ajax, Heerenveen and Twente and 1 team of Belgium: Club Brugge.
Today everybody was surprised by the exchange of goalkeepers between Palermo (Amelia) and Genoa (Rubinho). Everybody knew that Rubinho refused to enlarge his contract that ends next year and we all read that Mr. Preziosi wanted to pay him a higher salary because of Ruby’s improval last season, but nobody every thought about an exchange with Marco Amelia of Palermo. Amelia asked his President Mr. Zamparini permission to return to the North of Italy and to let him play in Europe because he wants to keep his position as second goalkeeper of the National team of Italy behind Buffon. Now both goalkeepers and both clubs are happy, but our Mr. Gasperini has to create a complete new hart of the team with the departure of Rubinho, Ferrari, Motta and Milito.
In the meanwhile Genoa also found a new shirtsponsor with the Italian Fashion company Gaudi Trade and Wednesday we draw 0-0 against Reggiana (Serie C-1) in Reggio Emilia.
After beating Acqui Terme by 0-6 last Wednesday (2 goals of Milanetto; Fatic, Juric, Rossi and Modesto all scored once) yesterday Genoa played in Piëmonte against Olympique Nice of the France Ligue 1. De match started with a delay of half an hour because of an attack of 400 French (and Torino ?) hooligans against the Genoa-supporters. A cowardly action because 95% of the Genoani were formed by families with children.
Genoa played a good match in the first 45 minutes with a big chance to Hernan Crespo who failed to score. Between the 55th and 60th minute 3 big mistakes of the Genoa-defence, so 3 goals to Nice. In the last half an hour a lot of players were substituted but the score did not change any more: 0-3. Next week Ligue 1 starts in France and Olympique Nice is ready to start, Mr. Gasperini still has 18 days before our first important match at Thursday 20th Augustus in Europa League (drawing next Friday). In the meanwhile Genoa already sold 20.200 seasontickets, so we are close to last season with 22.856 and the all-time record of 23.125 in the last Uefa-Cup season 91-92.