Author: Hans

Wednesday 13th August 2008  –  Stadio Luigi Ferraris, Genova

This match to remember the murdered Genoa-supporter Vincenzo Claudio Spagnolo can be a very spectacular one. The teams are both on the way back to the top after National titles and great European adventures in the Uefa-cup in the past. Since several years AZ plays the most attractive football in Holland. The money of their President Dirk Scheringa and the choice of traditional Ajax-coaches Adriaanse and Van Gaal brought offensive and succesfull football in Alkmaar. Unless the fact that AZ has the most players of all teams in the world on the Olympic Games in China (2 with Holland, 3 with Belgium and 1 with Argentina) and their striker Graziano Pellè is injured they still can bring a young and very attractive team in the field. Their leaders are Dutch international Demy de Zeeuw who played this summer with Holland on the European Championships in Austria and Switzerland and former international Stijn Schaars who returned after a heavy injury.

    

Since the arrival in the summer of 2002 of former Ajax-coach Co Adriaanse everything changed in the city of cheese: Alkmaar. In the past AZ with Jan Peters did win it’s only Dutch title (in 1981), 3 Dutch Cups (1978, 1981, 1982) and reached the Uefa-cup final in 1982 against Ipwisch Town, which they lost by 0-3 in England and a 4-2 victory in the Olympic Stadium of Amsterdam. In the summer of 1982 Jan Peters and several other players left the club to play outside Holland and AZ fell down. Since the return of Adriaanse, AZ is back on the Dutch top. After many years at the bottom of the standings and also 9 years in the first division of Holland, Adriaanse reached the 5th place with AZ in the season 2003-2004 and the 3rd place and the semi-finals of Uefa-cup in the season 2004-2005. In the summer of 2005 Adriaanse was changed by the famous ex-Ajax, Barcelona and Dutch National team trainer Louis van Gaal, who married last Friday in Portugal. With him AZ reached the 2nd place in the Dutch league in the season 2005-2006 and the 3rd place in the season 2006-2007, while they still were on the first place after 33 of the 34 matches. In the last match AZ could not stand the nerves and PSV and Ajax passed them in the standings. In the summer of 2007 AZ changed their topscorers Koevermans and Arveladze into Ari and Pellè (Lecce) which was not a good decision because last season AZ ended on the 11th place in the Dutch League. 

Genoa misses 4 players tomorrow: the 3 Olympic players: Bocchetti, Criscito and Vanden Borre and the injured Matteo Paro. The rumours in the newspapers say that the near future of Lucho Figueroa will be decided after the match, which should be very unfair after 2 years of injury and only a few minutes in the friendly matches this season.  

Within 20 hours Genoa played 3 friendly matches. Genoa should start the mini-tournament with matches of 45 minutes in Alessandria against Larissa (Greece Serie A), but the official documents of the Greece team failed, so the referee did not want to start the match. Half an hour later Genoa opened the tournament against the hometeam Alessandria (Serie C-2). With a goal of Biava in the 8th minute the Gasperini-boys did win the opening-match. Directly after this game Genoa had to play against Larissa that in the meanwhile resolved the administrative problems. Maybe because of the combination of the high temperature and the fact that it was the first match of Larissa and the second of Genoa, the Greece team did win the match by 2-0, which meant the first defeat of Genoa this summer after 5 victories (18-1, 4-0, 1-0, 8-0 and 1-0).

This afternoon the Grifoni played their third match within 20 hours against Derthona (Serie D). This match was especially organized to give the 2 last arrivals: Sokratis Papastathopoulos (who prefers that we name him Sokratis) and Matteo Ferrari 90 minutes playtime before their first homematch against AZ Alkmaar next Wednesday. Genoa did win the match by 5-0 with goals of Gasbarroni (2x), Di Vaio, Olivera and Palladino.  

Yesterday-evening Genoa has beaten Acqui Terme by 8-0. Luciano Figueroa played his first match and scored his first goal. Raffaele Palladino and Rubén Olivera both scored twice, while Biava, Di Vaio and youngster D’Alessandro scored the other goals. Before the match Matteo Ferrari, who played already 204 matches in Serie A, signed his contract for the next 3 years, while today Sokratis Papastathopoulos arrived in Genova to have his medical test and afterwards he signed his agreement.

Next Saturday Genoa plays in Alessandria a mini-tournament with matches of 45 minutes against the local team that plays in Serie C-2 and the team of the Serie A of Greece: Larissa. Wednesday 13th August the team of Mr. Gasperini plays against AZ Alkmaar to win the Tropheo Claudio Spagnolo.  

At the end of the 2 weeks of training in Austria, Genoa played a friendly match against AEK Athens the team of Rivaldo and Papastathopoulos one of the most wanted young defenders of Europe. In the first half Giuseppe Sculli was close to the opening-goal, but he headed the ball against the crossbar. In the second half after 15 minutes Davide di Gennaro scored a wonderful goal after a great combination with Gasbarroni. In the rest of the match that was live on the internet (thanks Justin TV !!) the advantage of Genoa never was in danger thanks to Alessio Scarpi and the young defender Matteo D’Alessandro. Tonight Genoa flies back from Innsbruck to Genova for a little break of 2 days. Monday starts a new session of 2 trainingsweeks in Acqui Terme (Piemonte).

In a few days you will find the complete competition-schedule on this internetsite. The season starts with the match Genoa-Mantova in Coppa Italia on Saturday 23rd or Sunday 24th Augutus. One week later Serie A starts with the match Catania-Genoa. The 7th of September there is no Serie A because of a qualification match of Italy to South-Africa 2010. The week after on Sunday 14th September Genoa plays the first homematch in Serie A against A.C. Milan (with Ronaldinho, but without Marco Borriello who is operated yesterday in Belgium by famous doctor Martens).

The derbies against Sampdoria take place on 7th December (away) and 3rd May (home), probably 2 weeks before the 2nd calcetto-edition United in the name of Genoa. 

Yesterday Genoa played the first friendly match of the season in Neustifst (Austria) against the hometeam Stubaital. The Grifoni scored 18 times, 7 in the first and 11 in the second half. The last goal of the match was, as a matter of friendship, scored by Stubaital in the 90th minute. Topscorer of Genoa was Olivera with 4 goals, Di Vaio (3), Di Gennaro (2), Greco (2), Pinau (2) and Palladino, Biava, Mesto, Rossi and Sculli all 1 goal. Genoa missed the injured Figueroa and Paro.

Last week Genoa sold Leon and Lucarelli to Parma in Serie B, while the transfer of Olivera to Genoa now is official.