Author: Hans

Last summer Genoa changed with Siena one of the biggest talents in the world: Fernando Forestieri with Abdoulay Konko. Of course the Genoa-supporters reacted furious, but Mr. Gasperini and his staff were right. Our 24 years old French midfielder played a fantastic season in Serie A and a lot of big clubs wanted to buy him. F.C. Sevilla did the best offer: € 9,3 millon, so Abdoulay plays in the Primera Division next season. To close the circle the ownership of Forestieri returned this week completely to Genoa.

Besides Konko also Cesare Bovo left Genoa this week. The defender returned to his former club Palermo that in return pays € 3 million and the 31 years old defender Giuseppe Biava to Genoa. With the sale of Borriello, Konko and Bovo Mr. Preziosi earned over € 21 million and the arrival of Davide di Gennaro and Giuseppe Biava.   

It is almost sure that Genoa found a substitute to Abdoulay Konko: the 24 years old defender of Fiorentina, Alessandro Potenza. The young defender is raised in the youth of Inter and was rent to Ancona, Parma, Chievo (all in Serie A) and Real Mallorca (Spain) before he was transfered to Fiorentina in the summer of 2006. The last 2 seasons he played 34 matches with the purple team and scored 1 goal. The former youth-international of Italy only has to pass the medical test before he is a Genoano.

In the meanwhile the transfer of Konko to Inter has stopped because Mr. Preziosi refused the offer of the Italian Champions and now it looks like Konko goes to Udinese. Also the transfer of Raffaele Palladino to Genoa probably failed, because after Juventus and Genoa finally had an agreement (including remaining of Matteo Paro and Domenico Criscito with Genoa) the talented striker refused the offer of Genoa. Will be continued..

After the 3-0 victory of Holland against Italy the whole country gets crazy and hope (and believe) that the Dutch can be European Champions again, 20 years after 1988. Only the owners of a living-ark in the Amsterdam canals don’t like the idea of a new victory of Holland, which you can understand if you see the picture below of the party in 1988.

Tonight Mr. Enrico Preziosi spoke on the local televisionchannel Telecitta about the transfermarket. He confirmed that untill now Genoa has sold Borriello to Milan and bought Modesto (Reggina), Di Gennaro (Milan) and today Gasbarroni (Parma). Every day the newspapers are full with stories and speculations about the central-forward that substitutes Marco Borriello. The last days they wrote about Pazzini (Fiorentina), Bianchi (Manchester City), Maccarone (Siena) and Bjelanovic (Torino), but tonight Mr. Preziosi confirmed his trust in Lucho Figueroa as our central-forward in the season 2008-2009. 

It is almost sure that Andrea Gasbarroni is the 3rd new arrival of Genoa this summer. After Modesto and Di Gennaro again a midfieldplayer. Gasbarroni is raised in the youth of Juventus (with Gasperini) and afterwards he played with Varese, Sampdoria, Palermo and Parma. Last year the almost 27 years old offensive midfielder played 26 matches and scored 5 goals. In his career he played 103 Serie A matches and scored 16 times. 

For a lot of people the transferperiod is just as interesting as the football itselves. Especially in Italy there is always a lot of news about transfers and not more than 5% of the news is really true, but which 5% ? With Genoa Marco Borriello and Abdoulay Konko have a lot of interest from other (big) clubs, so it will be very difficult to keep these players in Genova. On the other hand Mr. Preziosi and Mr. Gasperini promised the Genoa-fans a more better team then last year.

Just like every team in Italy also Genoa has a lot of players which are only for 50% owned by the club. Before 6th of June the clubs that own the players has to make a deal about the player. Some clubs already fixed the price of the player at the moment they sold 50%, for instance with Criscito the price of the 50% of Juventus is € 6,5 million which Genoa has to pay if they want to keep the young talented defender. With other players there is no amount in the contract and the clubs have to talk about the price of the other half. For instance 50% of Marco Borriello was bought by Genoa last summer when Preziosi payed  € 2 million to A.C. Milan. Now being an Italian national player and 19 goals in Serie A later the value of Marco Borriello is raised till around € 20 million, which means that if you want to have Marco Borriello completely you have to pay around € 10 million to the other owner. Probably Genoa finds this too much, so Borriello goes back to A.C. Milan that pays Genoa the large sum of money to have the other 50% of Super Marco. In that case Mr. Preziosi made a benefit of € 8 million in 1 year which he can use to buy new players or for instance to pay Juventus to have the other 50% of Criscito and Paro.

Genoa owns a lot of players for only 50%: Criscito, Bovo, Santos, Paro, VandenBorre and Borriello that played with them last year and Coppola (Siena), Forestieri (Siena), Papa Waigo (Fiorentina) and Masiello (Bari) who played with the other teams. Before the 6th of June there must be a deal between the 2 clubs and if they don’t find a solution both teams have to write down the price they want to pay to have the other 50% in an enveloppe which they have to give to the Football Association that opens them and the team who wrote down the highest price has to pay that price to the other team.