Author: Hans

Last year the 1st edition of the Calcetto-tournament United in the name of Genoa was a big succes. Six nice teams from Toscany, Liguria and Holland showed up and played a fantastic and very friendly tournament that was perfectly organized by Lucca, Iccio and some other great Genoani. This year we come back from Holland with at least 2, but probably 3 teams to show Italy once again the famous Dutch total-football. We hope to see you all, including Mr. Gasperini and his complete staff, on Saturday 16th May 2009 for the 2nd edition of United in the name of Genoa.

Unless the fact that it still takes 17 days and 2 matches before the derby will be played, the fever already has started! Monday-afternoon began the selling to the “visiting” seasonticketholders of Genoa, because on the 7th December we play an away-game in our own stadium in which Sampdoria is every 2 weeks our temporary guest since 1946.

Because both teams together sold almost 43.000 season-tickets it is not possible to give entrance to all yearcards. Genoa-supporters only can visit the match in Gradinata Nord (9.167 seats) and the visitors-sector of Sampdoria besides Gradinata Nord with 2.079 seats. Unless the fact Sampdoria sold 2.818 season-tickets less they have the same number of tickets in May during our homederby, which they couldn’t even sell all last year. For the match in 17 days there are 5.257 single tickets which can be bought by Sampdoria-supporters without a season-ticket in the Sampdoria-shop. Many Genoani surely will act to be a Sampdoria-supporter for only 5 minutes the next days, only at the moment they buy the ticket to see another home-victory of the Gasperini-boys !!

To substitute heavily injured Ruud van Nistelrooy the most succesfull club in the world Real Madrid wanted tot buy Diego Milito, topscorer in Serie A with 10 goals. Genoa’s owner Enrico Preziosi, who spend € 12 million last summer to let 29 years old Diego return from Zaragoza, does not even want to talk about a price with the club of the capital of Spain. Diego Milito is not for sale, over and out !  

Both teams were equal and scored 3 times in the topmatch in Stadio Olimpico. Unfortunately a 100% regulary goal of Milito was annulated because of off-side and our Sokratis scored in his own goal, so we lost by 4-1.  

Mr. Gasperini started with Potenza and Gasbarroni in the line-up in stead of Sokratis and Sculli. We will never know if this was maybe the reason that Juventus started much more agressive than our red and blue boys. Already in the 6th minute Grygera scored the opening goal with a strong shot behind Rubinho. Now Genoa was awake and the rest of the first half Genoa was without any doubt the best team in the field. We created many chances, but Ferrari (header just over the goal), Gasbarroni (ball on the post) and 2 times Milito (just besides the goal + irregulary annulated goal) forgot to score and on the other side Amauri scored the only chance of Juventus in the first half: 2-0.

In the second half it was Genoa that started agressive and already in the 3rd minute Milito gave Raffaele Palladino the big chance to score 2-1, but our striker missed. After this big opportunity Juventus froze the match and it looked like it would end with 2-0, till Del Piero found Iaquinta in the 85th minute who scored 3-0. This was too much, but justice came within a few minutes when Legrottaglie played the ball with his hands (no yellow card of course) and Diego Milito again scored the penalty. Also the last goal was scored by Genoa, but substitute Sokratis chose the wrong goal: 4-1.

Because of a match of the Italian rugby-team Genoa has to play already tomorrownight in Stadio Olimpico of Torino. A special match because our former Juventus youth-trainer Gasperini has brought 7 ex-players of the youth of Juventus in our red and blue team: Criscito, Palladino (both for 50% owned by the Old Lady), Sculli, Gasbarroni, Paro, Olivera and Milanetto (a fanatic Torino-fan unless the fact he played in the youth of Juventus).

Besides the many ex-players Juventus-Genoa is also the match between the 2 best players in Italy last weekend: our topscorer Diego Milito and free-kick specialist Del Piero, while the other old star of Juventus: Pavel Nedved maybe tomorrow can leave the match without the red card he got the last 2 times. Injured goalkeeper and Genoa-supporter Buffon has some difficult decisions to make: does he watch the match on the vip-tribune or in the visitors-sector and what is stronger: his wallet or his heart?

These 20 players get the support of 2.000 Genoa-fans (on a working-day!) tomorrow:

Goalkeepers: 73 Scarpi, 83 Rubinho

Defenders: 25 Biava, 26 Bocchetti, 4 Criscito, 13 Ferrari, 3 Potenza, 13 Sokratis

Midfielders: 29 Brivio, 28 Juric, 8 Roman, 7 Rossi, 88 Thiago Motta, 68 Vanden Borre

Forwards: 17 Jankovic, 18 Gasbarroni, 22 Milito, 11 Olivera, 10 Palladino, 14 Sculli

Our red and blue team did also win it’s 6th homematch of the season against Reggina: 4-0. All the goals were scored in the second half: 3 by the new topscorer in Serie A: Diego Milito and the other one by Giuseppe Sculli. Genoa stays 7th in the standings with 20 points in 11 matches.

With Bocchetti and Palladino in the line-up instead of Criscito and Gasbarroni we started in the usual 3-4-3 system. Unless the last position in the standings Reggina played a good first half in which it was almost equal to Genoa. The breakpoint in the match was the 2nd yellow, so red card to Reggina-defender Costa just before the halftime whistle. With 11 against 10 Genoa started the 2nd half very offensively, also because after 4 minutes Gasperini substituted midfielder Mesto by 4th striker Gasbarroni. The substitute deserved only 4 minutes after his arrival a penalty that was realized by Milito: 1-0. After Genoa missed many changes to score the deciding goal it was again Diego Milito who headed in the 74th minute the 2nd goal behind goalkeeper Campagnolo. In the last 15 minutes Sculli and once again Milito scored the 3rd and 4th goal, so now our Diego is topscorer of Italy with 9 goals in only 11 matches.

With 2 difficult away-matches against Juventus and Lazio ahead it is very important that Genoa books a good result tomorrow in the homematch against Reggina, the team of ex-Genoa players: Campagnolo (goalkeeper), Santos (last season with Genoa), Cozza and Di Gennaro (still played with us in the first match of this season against Catania). Mr. Gasperini selected almost his complete playerslist except: Milanetto, Modesto + Paro (injured) and youngsters Lamanna (goalkeeper) + D’Alessandro. The 21 for tomorrow:

Goalkeepers: Rubinho, Scarpi

Defenders: Biava, Bocchetti, Criscito, Ferrari, Sokratis, Potenza

Midfielders: Brivio, Juric, Mesto, Roman, Rossi, Thiago Motta, Vanden Borre

Strikers: Jankovic, Gasbarroni, Milito, Olivera, Palladino, Sculli

With 2 important matches within 4 days: Genoa-Reggina next Sunday and Thursday in Stadio Olimpico: Juventus-Genoa, we can be happy that 3 of the 6 injured players are healthy again. Ruben Olivera played his last match against Fiorentina on 27th September, Raffaele Palladino did not wear our red and blue shirt since Genoa-Siena 3 weeks ago and Sokratis Papastathopoulos missed the great match against Udinese last week after his injury in the warming-up. 

The other 3 injured midfieldplayers still have to wait some time to be ready again. At the end of the month we hope that Omar Milanetto and Francesco Modesto are healthy to play in the matches against Bologna and Sampdoria, while Matteo Paro hopefully can make his return at the end of the season.