Il Grifone

By: j | August 28th, 2008

Since taking over in 2006, Gian Piero Gasperini has been somewhat of an unsung miracle man within Italian Football. While their are many managers who get a great deal of publicity, Genoa’s manager has taken Il Grifone from a newly promoted status of Serie B to thoughts of a European bid. Amongst the beautiful history of this institution, the turnaround from the depths of Serie C1 to grand hopes of competing on the European stage in less than five years is one of the sports great stories. The brilliance of last season’s return from Serie B after a dozen years was nothing short of remarkable as the club didn’t simply “survive”, it competed a mid-table form throughout the campaign and relegation, a normal thought for a newly promoted squad, was never an issue.

The Rossoblu have to deal with losing three key components to last seasons club who have very bright futures in the game. Marco Borriello’s stunning goal poaching prowess has moved onto AC Milan, Cesare Bovo to Palermo and Abdoulay Konko to Sevilla of La Liga.

While each of these players are very challenging losses, they have also made a host of extraordinary additions including the attacking trident of Andrea Gasbarroni, Uruguayan international Rubén Olivera and the brilliant young striker Raffaele Palladino from Juventus who will looking to make Serie A stand-up and take notice of his predatory skills. The club is keen to add more fire-power and various media sources contend Fiorentina’s Gianpaolo Pazzini is close to penning a deal to bring him to Genoa although there is still quite a bit of work to get that deal done. Alternatively veteran Lucho Figueroa has put together a very impressive pre-season and appears to be fully recovered the injuries that have plagued the last two campaigns. Continuing on the attacking front additions, Giandomenico Mesto and Francesco Modesto, both of extensive history at Reggina, will book-end the wing. The Azzuri ‘capped Giandomenico Mesto play will be critical in setting the attacking table.

On the defending side and possibly the biggest coup is Matteo Ferrari from the Giallorossi. The experienced twenty-eight year-old will anchor center-back in the Genoa’s 3-4-3 formation and is critical in improving their defensive woes. Alessandro Potenza joins from Fiorentina and will be a fixture at right-back with the very promising Domenico Criscito securing the left-side. From AEK Athens, twenty year-old Greek International Sokratis Papastathopoulos is a rising star in the international scene and will certainly make a strong presence defensively. Rubinho will hold down ‘keeping duties but this area needs to be tightly screwed down because the major weakness of the club is keeping the opposition off the score-sheets. If they are to attain their lofty goals of fifty-five to sixty-five points, they will need to not only replace Marco Borriello scoring ability but tighten the defensive net considerably.