International fansite Genoa CFC
After 11 years in Serie B and 1 season in Serie C-1 it is difficult to believe, but the scoreboard of Luigi Ferraris Stadium still tells the truth: Genoa is number 5 of Serie A. Big teams like Milan and Lazio are jealous that we already gained 12 points, 4 more than our local friends of Sampdoria. We all know it is almost impossible to keep the fifth place till the end of the season, but after the 12 difficult years it is good to enjoy this great moment. Forza Genoa !
Genoa did win the season-ticket competition against Sampdoria by 21.675 against 18.258. Genoa is on 6th place in Italy by number of season-tickets.
Top 10 in Italy:
Sunday afternoon: Genoa – Cagliari, almost 10 years after the foundation of our fanclub the first match to visit in Serie A. It also was the return in Gradinata Sud, this time as seasonticket-holder of Genoa and not as visiting supporter of Ajax. As we already had seen on the closed training saturday: Genoa played with Konko in defence and Marco Rossi on midfield. Also this time Mr. Gasperini found the perfect tactical-system to control the match. Cagliari hardly never reached goalkeeper Rubinho of Genoa, while goalkeeper Fortin on the other side was very bussy to try to keep the zero on the scoreboard. In the first half the Sardinian goalkeeper succeeded, but in the second half in front of Gradinata Sud he was without any chance at the fantastic goals of Borriello (his fifth this season!) and Marco di Vaio. Now Genoa is back in the same position as during our last visit of Gradinata Sud on 1st April 1992: zone Uefa-cup, only at that time this young supporter wasn’t born yet.
Saturday after the training there was a special match between the employees of Genoa. We recognized trainer Gian Piero Gasperini, his assistents Bruno Caneo and Gianluca Spinelli, doctor Lucio Genesio, Fabrizio Preziosi, press-manager Dino Storace and Luciano Figueroa. Our Argentinian striker played without any fisical problems and scored some goals of course. Let’s hope Lucho returns quickly in the team of Mr. Gasperini, but after Saturday-afternoon we know that the goalkeepers in Serie A have to fear our very sympathetic forward.
Saturday-afternoon at 14.30, half an hour before the closed training of Genoa, we hand over our yearly trophy: “Genoa Club Amsterdam Genoano of the year” to the trainer of Genoa: Mr. Gian Piero Gasperini. Our 49 years old coach really was proud to receive the trophy and was honoured with our comparation of him with Michels, Cruijff and Van Gaal. The very friendly trainer told us he is indeed inspired by the Dutch football-style, as we once again could see the day after during the fantastic match Genoa – Cagliari.
The fans of Genoa Club Amsterdam have chosen Mr. Gasperini as Genoano of the year 2006-2007. There are many reasons to honour our 49 years old coach as most important Genoano of last season. Of course he brought us back in Serie A and he surely always is a real gentlemen, but most of all he is an Italian trainer with Dutch, or even better, Amsterdam minds. He always thinks offensive and his most favorite tactical-system is 3-4-3. It’s the system of the 3 most successful Dutch coaches of all times: Rinus Michels, Johan Cruijff and Louis van Gaal.
All 3 were born in Amsterdam and started their career as coach of Ajax (they won together 4 European Cups and 7 Dutch titles) and then went to F.C. Barcelona (to win together 2 European Cups and 7 Spanish titles), while Rinus Michels also was the coach of the winning national team of Holland during the European Championship in 1988. Our Mr. Gasperini has the same way of thinking as the 3 musketeers of Holland and all 4 of them use the same lyrics like: “attacking is the best defense” and “if we have the ball the opponent can’t score”. Their way of thinking brings a lot of succes and must be honoured in these hard years of modern, defensive and calculated football. Let’s hope Mr. Gasperini can bring us the 10th scudetto in the next years to be forever the man that gave us our star!
We hope to hand over our trophy to Mr. Gasperini next Saturday at the Pegli trainingfield.
Especially in the season of Serse Cosmi Genoa often lost points in the last minutes of the game. One of the main reasons in the past was the fever to loose points, so many times the team played the dying minutes of the game in a defensive way. Now with Mr. Gasperini Genoa always tries to play offensive and like the best Dutch player of all times Johan Cruijff always says: to attack is the best defense. As long as you have the ball, the opponent can’t score.
Today to be honest Genoa also was lucky. In the twelveth minute Leon gave a good cross and before Borriello could shoot, Cannavaro already shoot the bal in his own goal: 0-1. In the second half Napoli got their almost usual penalty in homematches. Domizzi scored the penalty behind Alessio Scarpi. After the equalizer it was mostly Napoli that was close to the winning goal, but if possible Genoa also tried to win the match. In the 89th minute Borriello gave a perfect cross just on the head of substitute Giuseppe Sculli: 1-2.
Now Genoa is on the 9th position in the standings, which is fantastic, but not the most important fact of this weekend. Most specially was the warm welcome and the applause by Napoli-fans the Genoa-team got at the arrival at the airport and by entering their hotel and the stadium. Genoa and Napoli: friends forever !!
For the second time in a row the Italian Football Association tries to destroy the friendship of Napoli and Genoa-fans. Last year the topmatch in Serie B was moved to a monday-evening so not many Genoani could visit the match and this year it is even more worse. Because of the problems during Napoli-Livorno last wednesday there are no supporters allowed to enter the stadium next Sunday. Already 2000 Genoa-fans booked their 700 kilometers trip to Naples this weekend to have again a party with our twin-supporters. All the newspaper were full of the incredible atmosphere during the promotionmatch Genoa-Napoli last June when Genoa-supporters congratulated Napoli-players inside the field, but the Italian Football authorities still don’t like the two teams that were already punished so many times in the past. It’s a shame !
Tonight Genoa booked the first victory in Serie A: 3-2 against Udinese in a very, very attractive match. Genoa-striker Marco Borriello scored all 3 red and blue goals. In the 20th minute Marco scored his first one. Directly after halftime Borriello scored his second goal with his head, but the happiness lasted only a few minutes because Rubinho got a false red card. Our goalkeeper touched the ball with his hands inside the penalty-area and not outside like referee Ciampi decided. To make it even more worse Asamoah scored the 2-1 only 2 minutes later. With 10 against 11 of course Genoa lost control of the match and substitute goalkeeper Scarpi had to make many saves. In the 73rd minute Borriello was softly touched by defender Zapata inside the penalty-area but to correct his error with Rubinho now referee Ciampi gave Genoa a penalty that Borriello scored. Only 4 minutes later Mesto made it 3-2 with a shot that was half blocked by Gaetano de Rosa. The last sixteen minutes lasted hours, but after the final whistle of the referee the party started. Genoa is now together with European champion A.C. Milan on the shared 9th position in the tables, just outside the Uefa-cup zone.
The first derby in Serie A after 12 years ended without goals: 0-0. Genoa did not play in their 3-4-3 system like usual, but with only 2 strikers (Borriello and Di Vaio), 5 midfieldplayers (Rossi, Konko, Milanetto, Coppola and Fabiano) and the usual 3 defenders (Bega, Bovo and Lucarelli). Sampdoria did not gave Omar Milanetto any chance to play his usual role as playmaker of Genoa, so other Genoa-players had to organize the offensive part of the match, which did not succeed very well. Best Genoa-player: Marco Rossi, while it also need to be said that Sampdoria-players acted very agressive and frustrated like Bellucci that kicked Rubinho in the face while our goalkeeper already had the ball in his hands.
In Skysportscafé around 20 Genoani (no ciclisti !!) watched the match together on 2 big screens, while Real Madrid fans had to watch their match against Valladolid on 1 very little screen. Amsterdam solo Rossoblu !
