Genoa with 21 players + 1500 fans in Denmark

The stadium of Odense BK: Fionia Park, capacity: 15.761 spectators (800 in visitors-sector)

Genoa gets the support of 1500 fans tomorrow in Fionia Park in Odense. Our red and blue boys start with a 3-1 victory last week in Luigi Ferraris and have Hernan Crespo back in the team. Mr. Gasperini and his staff selected the following 21 players:

GOALKEEPERS: Amelia, Scarpi, Russo

DEFENDERS: Biava, Criscito, Esposito, Fatic, Moretti, Sokratis, Tomovic

MIDFIELDERS: Kharja, Juric, Mesto, Milanetto, Modesto, Rossi, Zapater

STRIKERS: Crespo, Figueroa, Palacio, Sculli

Genoa-fans in and around Amsterdam can watch the match on a big screen in Satellite Sportscafé in the centre (Leidseplein) of the capital of Holland.

Genoa wins first match against A.S. Roma: 3-2

Giuseppe Sculli has found new friends to celebrate the goals after Milito left to Inter

Only 72 hours after the match against Odense our red and blue team again booked a victory: 3-2 against A.S. Roma. Mr. Gasperini changed his line-up at 5 positions: Bocchetti (injured), Milanetto, Criscito, Palacio and Figueroa were substituted by Sokratis, Zapater, Modesto, Rossi and Crespo. In the first half Genoa was for sure the best team in the field but we did not create many chances, while Roma only had 1 big chance of Totti that was fantasticly saved by Amelia. At halftime our coach substituted Mesto and Modesto by Palacio and Criscito, who scored the first goal of the season after only 4 minutes when he shot the ball with his right (!) foot in the far corner: 1-0. The happiness lasted only 15 minutes in which Taddei (header) and Totti (luckily touched a shot of Guberti) changed the score into 1-2. But Genoa with the help of the fantastic fans in the stadium did not gave up. In the 69th minute Juric was stopped irregulary by Andreolli just outside the penalty-area. Our new Spanish central midfielder Alberto Zapater shot the free-kick directly high in the left corner of the goal: 2-2.

Alberto Zapater scored the equalizer with a great free-kick 

The last 15 minutes both teams tried to win the match, but Genoa surely was the strongest. In the 83rd minute the reward arrived when Giuseppe Biava scored the 3rd and last goal behind goalkeeper Artur of Roma, who first stopped the shot of Sculli: 3-2.

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Mr. Gasperini selects 21 players against Roma

The line-up of Genoa against Odense BK (20th August 2009)

Tonight at 20.45 hours Genoa plays the first match in Serie A of the season 2009-2010 in Luigi Ferraris against A.S. Roma. Mr. Gasperini selected the following 21 players:

GOALKEEPERS: Amelia, Scarpi

DEFENDERS: Biava, Criscito, Esposito, Fatic, Moretti, Sokratis, Tomovic

MIDFIELDERS: Kharja, Juric, Mesto, Milanetto, Modesto, Rossi, Zapater

STRIKERS: Crespo, El Shaarawy, Figueroa, Palacio, Sculli

Genoa-Odense 3-1 (Figueroa (2) and Moretti)

The most happy and the most unlucky player of Genoa-Odense: Figueroa and Bocchetti

Tonight Genoa beat Odense BK by 3-1 in the first match of the Play-offs to qualify to the Europa League. With the injured strikers Crespo, Floccari, Jankovic and Palladino our coach Mr. Gasperini did not had a lot of choices between the strikers in his team. Genoa started with the following 3-4-3 line-up: Amelia; Biava, Moretti, Bocchetti; Mesto, Milanetto, Juric, Criscito; Palacio, Figueroa and Sculli. In front of 21.889 supporters Genoa started very agressive and already after 8 minutes Emilano Moretti with the help of a Danish defender scored the openinggoal: 1-0. In the rest of the first half our red and blue team was several times close to 2-0, but on the other side Odense hit the crossbar once. In the first 11 minutes of the second half Lucho Figueroa scored twice in front of his fans in Gradinata Nord. The 2-0 was a classical header of a central-striker:

 Lucho Figueroa headed the 2-0 in the goal against Odense

The third goal was also made by Figueroa after Sculli hit the crossbar and Biava’s rebound was blocked by goalkeeper Carroll towards Figueroa who did not think for a second: 3-0. The joy lasted only 2 minutes when Gislason brought the 3-1 on the scoreboard. After the goal of Odense both teams had some changes, but the match ended with 3-1 and a heavy ankle-injury of our young defender Salvatore Bocchetti. The return is next week in Odense with a Dutch referee: Björn Kuipers.

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Genoa beats Villarreal: 1-2 (Sculli + Crespo)

The line-up during Villareal - Genoa 1-2

In Spain Genoa has beaten Villarreal, the topteam of Spain that reached the quarterfinals of Champions League last season in which they were beaten by Arsenal. Genoa missed all their international players (including Mimmo Criscito who played his first match in the Squadra Azzura) that played with their national team yesterday. In the 1st half Giuseppe Sculli scored the first goal with a header and just after halftime Hernan Crespo doubled the score. Villarreal scored by penalty their goal: 1-2 and Hernan Crespo missed a penalty that was deserved by captain Marco Rossi 20 minutes before the end. The victory 1 week before the match in Europa League against Odense BK is very important to Mr. Gasperini and his staff after the 0-3 defeat against Olympique Nice 2 weeks ago. 

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In the meanwhile Anthony Vanden Borre was rent to Porthsmouth (Premier league), so this season there is no Dutch or Belgian player in the team of Genoa.

Figueroa replaces Palladino + Jankovic in E.L.

Figueroa celebrates with Fabiano the 1-1 equalizer

Yesterday Genoa presented the list of 25 players that represent the team in the play-offs of Europa League on 20th and 27th August against Odense BK. Because of the virus of Palladino and the injuries of Floccari and Jankovic our coach Mr. Gasperini and his staff only had 3 healthy forwards left in the team. For this reason Luciano Figueroa was asked to stay a little longer in Italy, which he accepted. The list of 25 players, including 4 yougsters* that raised in the youth of Genoa which is an obligation of Uefa:

GOALKEEPERS: Marco Amelia, Danilo Russo*, Alessio Scarpi

DEFENDERS: Giuseppe Biava, Salvatore Bocchetti, Domenico Criscito*, Andrea Esposito, Ivan Fatic, Alessio Grea*, Emiliano Moretti, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Nenad Tomovic

MIDFIELDERS: Mattia Ferraro*, Ivan Juric, Houssine Kharja, Giandomenico Mesto, Francesco Modesto, Omar Milanetto, Marco Rossi, Alberto Zapater

FORWARDS: Hernan Crespo, Luciano Figueroa, Sergio Floccari, Rodrigo Palacio, Giuseppe Sculli

The 2 substitutes are the young forwards: Stephan El Shaarawy and Dejan Lazarevic  

Genoa wins 6-0; Floccari and Jankovic injured

Hernan Crespo and Giuseppe Sculli both scored twice against Pro Vercelli

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.

Play-off Europa League: Genoa-Odense BK

The stadium of Odense BK: Fionia Park, capacity: 15.761 spectators (800 in visitors-sector)

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 at 13.30 drawing of Europa League

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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.