Football Season Guide

Since returning to the Serie A in 2023/2024, Genoa have only managed to avoid relegation, while getting worse from one year to the other. In fact, last season, they were utterly disastrous at the beginning, failing to win any of the initial 9 games. Patrick Vieira had been impressive when taking the reins of the team mid-way through the previous season but, at his first full campaign in charge, he totally lost his confidence and knew not how to get out of troubles. Thus, Vieira was let go and Daniele De Rossi, coming from a short-lived experience at Roma, became the new coach. He proved capable of leading the team to safe shores, although Genoa often went through black-outs and even ended the campaign without any wins and just 1 goal scored in the last 5. De Rossi will now be asked by the ambitious management to bring Genoa back to the top 10 of Italian football but some too small steps were taken in that direction over the summer. First of all, with Bijlow now the new number 1 in goal, previous starter Leali was let go, unreplaced yet. At the back, they let go of centre-back Zatterstrom, returned to his parent club after leaving no mark, while Matturro returned from a loan in Spain. They lacked alternatives on the left, with right-backs Sabelli and Norton-Cuffy or midfielder Ellertsson often adapted to the role, and in arrived young left-back Puczka and, more importantly, Mitaj, immediately set to contend for a start with Aaron. In the midfield, they lost a major protagonist in Malinovskyi, who decided to leave for pastures new, and they signed experienced Sow, from Sevilla. They also renewed Baldanzi’s loan and acquired promising Meichtry. In the attack, they sold young Ekhator to Juventus, while they signed Colombo, their top scorer with 7 goals and 3 assists, permanently from Milan and hired a new winger in Traore, who had mixed seasons since doing well at Sassuolo.