Category: News

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.

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.

Mr. Preziosi gave our coach Gian Piero Gasperini the 2 players he wanted the most. A real substitute to Matteo Ferrari who left Genoa to Besiktas (Turkey), 23 years old central defender Andrea Esposito of Lecce. The young defender already was selected this summer by Italian National team coach Lippi to play the match against Northern Ireland. The tall (1.91) and strong (85 kilos) defender was wanted by a lot of Serie A teams and already signed a pre-contract last month with A.S. Roma, but finally choose Genoa.

For years our team missed a real substitute to Ivan Juric, a defensive midfielder with a great tactical vision who can ‘read the match’. In Alberto Zapater the 24 years old captain of Real Zaragoza (Spain) we finally found him. The symbol of Real Zaragoza who was raised in the youth of the club choose Genoa after having several times contact with his former teammate with Zaragoza our topscorer of last year Diego Milito. The midfielder is named El Toro (The Bull) in Spain and was captain of his Spanish team.

Tonight Genoa plays at 18.00 hours against Olympique Nice (Serie A in France).

Tonight the new schedule of Serie A ’09-’10 was published by Lega Calcio. Genoa plays the first match in Luigi Ferraris on Sunday 23rd Augustus against A.S. Roma. The second match is 1 week later in Bergamo against Atalanta. The homederby takes place on Sunday 29th November, while the return is on 11th April 2010. The complete schedule including the playdates of the Europa League will be published on this site in a few days.

After beating Stubaital by 17-0 (topscorers Crespo and Floccari who both scored 3 times) and Rodengo Saiano (2-1, goals of Crespo and Sculli) the European adventure of Genoa started last Friday in Brussels against Anderlecht. The Belgium team already trained for 5 weeks because they play this week their first pre-round match of the Champions League, while Genoa only was in training for 11 days. Genoa got the support of 200 fans, including some Dutch members of Genoa Club Amsterdam.

Genoa started the match with the following team: Rubinho; Biava, Bocchetti, Moretti; Mesto, Kharja, Juric, Criscito; Sculli, Crespo and Jankovic. After 14 minutes Juhasz scored the opening goal, but only 12 minutes later our central midfieldplayer Houssine Kharja scored just outside the penaltyarea the equalizer: 1-1. Despite several chances both teams did not score anymore, so Genoa left Brussels with a draw.

Next Wednesday Genoa plays against Acqui (Serie D) and Saturday Olympique Nice is our following opponent. Wednesday 5th August we play in Reggio Emilia against their hometeam Reggiana (Serie C-1) and 3 days later we play against Pro Vercelli the team that was 7 times Champion of Italy in the past and now plays in Serie C-2. The pre-season ends with the match at Thursday 13th August in Spain against Villareal, exactly 7 days before the first match in the Europa League and 10 days before the start of Serie A.

 

The new season starts in just more than 2 weeks at Monday 13th July in Neustift. Genoa stays in Austria till Friday-morning 24th July when the team of Mr. Gasperini goes by plane towards Brussels to play in the evening against Belgium topteam Anderlecht, the former club of Anthony Vanden Borre. Maybe some of our members in Belgium and in the South of Holland have the opportunity to watch this preparingmatch to the first matches in Europa League at 20th and 27th August. 

Yesterday it was only hope, but today it becames true: Genoa bought the missing 50% of Bosko Jankovic of Palermo (€ 3,5 million) and enlarged the stay of Raffaele Palladino in our team with another year. Mr. Gasperini said 2 weeks ago that he wants a maximum of 22 line-up players in his selection. At this moment he can use the following 21 players:

Goalkeepers: Scarpi (and probably Rubinho or Sorrentino)

Defenders: Biava, Bocchetti, Criscito, Ferrari, Sokratis and Tomovic

Midfielders: Juric, Kharja, Mesto, Milanetto, Modesto, Paro, Pelé, Rossi and Vanden Borre

Strikers: Crespo, Floccari, Jankovic, Palladino and Sculli (and probably Dembélé)

 

The great season 2008-2009 was also the season that our 22 years old defenders Salvatore Bocchetti and Mimmo Criscrito definitively changed from talents into complete Serie A-players. Both players are at the moment in Sweden to play with Italy the European Championship for players below 21 years and are also close to the National team of Mr. Lippi. Today Genoa bought the last 50% of Criscito and paid Juventus € 5,5 million for that and last week the same deal was made with Frosinone (Serie B) about Bocchetti which costed around € 2 million. Tomorrow Mr. Preziosi also tries to keep the strikers Jankovic and Palladino with us and he probably also buys Moussa Dembélé of AZ Alkmaar. Besides all the good news it look likes our goalkeeper Rubinho leaves us.