Sending out an SOS for Genoa

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This article was published 04/01/2020 (2430 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Operation Rescue Genoa will commence today at 6 p.m. local time — zero hour — when the oldest club in Italy takes the pitch at the country’s senior stadium for a clash with Sassuolo (11 a.m. CT.)

Having appointed a new boss and welcomed a trio of mercenaries during the week, the outfit affectionately dubbed Il Vecchio Balordo (The Old Fool) by famed calcio journalist Gianni Brera will look to halt an eight-match skid that threatens its Serie A status.

If the performance matches the pre-battle chest-thumping, the last-place side should be able to claim all three points and even pass SPAL in the table by mid-evening.

“Let me work,” stated a confident Davide Nicola, hired as manager to replace Thiago Motta, who had already replaced Aurelio Andreazzoli this season.

“I started here, so returning to Genoa would be splendid,” added midfielder Velon Behrami, whose contract was cancelled by Sion in October.

“My goal is to save Genoa,” crowed striker Mattia Destro after arriving from Bologna on the other side of the Apennines — he of exactly zero goals this term.

“I am ready to give my contribution!” exclaimed goalkeeper Mattia Perin, recalling “the history you can breathe in at the Pegli training ground.” The 27-year-old made only nine appearances for Juventus over 18 months after joining the Bianconeri from Genoa in 2018.

Needless to say, this is a risky operation at best. But Enrico Preziosi is desperate to sell the club, and he’d rather do it as the owner of a top-flight entity than a Serie B project. And so, his rental army is likely to grow. AC Milan striker Fabio Borini is a rumoured transfer target, as is towering Viktoria Plzen forward Michael Krmencik.

Genoa have scored just 17 goals in 17 matches and Preziosi is gambling that a brand-new attack, including Destro, could provide much-needed offence in the short term.

Defensively, Perin’s responsibility will be somehow backstopping the worst back-line in the division. The thing is, at least on paper, Paolo Ghiglione, Davide Biraschi, Cristian Romero and Domenico Criscito shouldn’t be nearly as bad as they are. In fact, until Genoa’s 4-0 defeat at first-place Inter Milan to close out 2019, they hadn’t conceded more than two goals in their previous five outings.

So there may be something for Nicola to work with.

Even in midfield the performances have somehow been worse than the sum of its parts. A combination of Serbia international Ivan Radovanovic, Juventus loanee Stefano Sturaro, former Poland Under-21 playmaker Filip Jagiello, Francesco Cassata (incidentally on loan from Sassuolo) and the Brazilian Sandro, whom Perziosi has kept trying to sell, should be more than capable of avoiding relegation.

The problem with Genoa, it seems, is stability — in that they don’t have any.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Since acquiring the club at auction for €20 million in 2003 (the previous ownership wasn’t exactly steady, either), Preziosi has made 26 managerial appointments. A number of managers have been brought back for a second spell. Another, Davide Ballardini, has been hired three times. And, naturally, fired three times.

But his conniving, and often illegal, manipulation of the transfer market makes his managerial merry-go-round seem almost amusing.

Perziosi has used Genoa as a sort of footballers’ clearing house — which, given the history of the club’s port-city roots, is a cruel sort of irony. Add up his punishments for inflating transfer fees, engaging in shady shared-ownership transactions and fixing matches and he has earned more than 12 years in football bans, most of which were overturned or reduced on appeal, as well as a handful of suspended jail sentences.

At present he is so despised that Genoa’s fans won’t even allow him into the stadium.

It’s against this backdrop that a proud and storied club will attempt to make up the five points between itself and archrivals Sampdoria, currently 17th in the standings.

To kick off 2020 Genoa actually have as good a schedule as they could have hoped for as the assault on relegation gets underway. But in the long term, their ambitions might be misplaced. Operation Rescue Genoa should be about nothing less than getting rid of Enrico Preziosi once and for all.

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