Genoa needed someone to steady the ship. By mid-January, the Rossoblù seemed to be disappearing beneath the waves of the Ligurian Riviera, having collected more managers than wins through the first 22 games of this Serie A season. Davide Ballardini was fired in November with the team in 17th in the table. In two months under Andriy Shevchenko, they sunk a further two places.
Alexander Blessin arrived promising “high velocity” football, “made of pressing and mentality”. Supporters did not know what to expect. The newspapers promised a disciple of Ralf Rangnick – one who had coached youth teams at RB Leipzig for eight years before taking his first step into management in Belgium with KV Oostende.
His impact has been more akin to a deity. Specifically, Neptune: ancient Rome’s god of the seas. Blessin has not so much steadied the ship as stilled the waters completely. Under his leadership, Genoa have played seven and drawn seven. Five of those matches ended goalless. The other two finished 1-1.
Put your old cliches about defensive Italian football to one side. Serie A averages 2.9 goals per game this season – second only to the Bundesliga among Europe’s top five leagues. Last season, it was 3.04. The models for success in 2022 are provided by Gian Piero Gasperini – daring his Atalanta players to engage in one-on-one duels all over the pitch – and Roberto Mancini, who made Italy European champions by encouraging his team to have fun.
Blessin might even share some of their values. Ahead of Sunday’s game at Atalanta he acknowledged Gasperini’s approach and said it would be up to his players to “make the one-on-ones ours all the way to the 95th minute”. Both managers prefer a quick tempo and higher press, as well as compact formations that keep the distances short between their lines of defence and attack.
But as Blessin explained in a previous interview with Voetbalmagazine: “There are different ways to put pressure on the opponent and they can vary a lot from one team to the next. You need to define the when and the how.
“There are those who put pressure on the passing lane and those who put it on the player. You can choose to put pressure on the man who holds the ball or to wait for the pass to arrive in open space.” His team blend both ideas but so far have focused especially on the latter.
Genoa average 12.4 intercepted passes per game in Serie A – joint-most in the division – but that number is rising. Against Internazionale a fortnight ago they had 17. In Bergamo on Sunday it was 21.
Blessin has leaned into the strengths of Genoa’s squad. Taken over by the Miami-based investment firm 777 Partners in September, the club launched a rejuvenation project in January, replacing high-profile veterans with young prospects from across Europe.
Goran Pandev, Felipe Caicedo, Ivan Radovanovic and Valon Behrami departed while Kelvin Yeboah, Silvan Hefti, Albert Gudmundsson, Nadiem Amiri and Morten Frendrup arrived. The latter group were more than a decade younger, on average, than the players they were replacing. Blessin appealed to their energy and desire to prove themselves with high-impact gameplans, designed to never give opponents a moment’s pause.
Has it been a success? That much is a matter of perspective. Genoa have achieved some remarkable results: taking points off Roma and Inter before Sunday’s stalemate against Atalanta. Those would have seemed unthinkable during a grim run under Shevchenko in which they mustered three points from nine games.
On the other hand, this run of draws – now just one shy of Serie A’s all-time record – may not save them from relegation. Genoa remain six points from safety. It has been six months since they won a game in Serie A, and 11 since they beat anyone at home.
Blessin is not to blame for what came before him, nor for the glaring holes in Genoa’s squad. Their leading scorer, Mattia Destro, has nine league goals this season. Domenico Criscito, the club captain, is next with five.
Criscito is also 35 years old, a defender, and off to join Toronto in the summer. He has been out injured for most of the past four months. Only Mohamed Fares, with two goals, has scored more than once in Serie A for them this season. Blessin has experimented with different combinations up front but so far nothing has clicked.
Perhaps it is simply a question of being patient. The Bologna defender Arthur Theate, who worked under Blessin at Oostende, recalled his training sessions as extremely intense at the beginning, relying heavily on videos from the manager’s time at Leipzig. “At times we left the pitch perplexed,” Theate told Voetbalmagazine, “because in the course of a training session we would not have taken a single shot on goal.”
Atalanta 0-0 Genoa; Fiorentina 1-0 Bologna; Milan 1-0 Empoli; Salernitana 2-2 Sassuolo; Sampdoria 1-3 Juventus; Spezia 2-0 Cagliari; Torino 1-1 Internazionale; Udinese 1-1 Roma; Verona 1-2 Napoli
Monday Lazio v Venezia (7.45pm GMT)
On the other hand, Genoa cannot afford to learn these lessons slowly if they intend to stay up. The evidence of Sunday’s game was that some players might benefit from shooting practice. Genoa had the best chance of the game, when Destro spread the ball to Frendrup running clean through with a quarter of an hour left. The Dane had time to pick his spot at the near post but fired straight at the keeper.
Nobody ought to be too critical of a 20-year-old making his Serie A debut. Frendrup was playing in an unfamiliar position, a central midfielder starting at right-back, and did a brilliant job of containing Atalanta’s attacks down his flank. The hosts had chances – Luis Muriel clipping the post and Mario Pasalic sending a one-on-one over – but they were few and far between.
Blessin appears to have buy-in from the club’s supporters, who stayed and sung his name at the end. He has signed a contract through to 2024 and his past words suggest he is not afraid of a project.
Discussing his future while at Oostende last October, the manager stressed that he wanted to pick his steps carefully. “What’s the point of going to a club that has the ambition to play at the top,” he asked, “but where I’m immediately under fire after two defeats?”
He had almost moved to Sheffield United in the spring, only for their interest to be halted by post-Brexit visa laws. Perhaps the Blades’ loss will be Genoa’s gain. Blessin has not suffered one defeat at Genoa yet, let alone two. A listing ship has been steadied. Time is running short, though, to sail it away from the relegation zone.
