Marked for Raffaele Aresini
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 May 2029
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Raffaele Aresini has just signed for Panionios, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad28 May 2029
Nair Tiknizyan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 May 2029
A row about effort at Panionios
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kurt Zouma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market28 May 2029
Raffaele Aresini is 20, and Panionios have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Market28 May 2029
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Fotis Sgouris may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The dugout28 May 2029
Richard Jensen knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Panionios, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout28 May 2029
Nobody at Panionios will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market28 May 2029
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad28 May 2029
Dan Cohen still has not settled
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Panionios would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match4 Nov 2028
Genoa make it 12 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Genoa have 12 straight wins of it.
Match1 Nov 2028
Genoa through in the cup
A 1‑0 win over Carrarese, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match4 Nov 2028
Genoa are at home on the road
6 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Market6 Nov 2028
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Genoa heard it as anything else.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words exchanged at Genoa
Justin Bijlow and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The terraces6 Nov 2028
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Gabriele Pessolani has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match4 Nov 2028
Frosinone made Genoa work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Looking ahead6 Nov 2028
The neighbours are next for Genoa
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Sampdoria on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces31 Jul 2028
The mood at Genoa has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
Pressure builds in the Genoa boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2028
$1.1M on the table at Hellas Verona. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad31 Jul 2028
A falling-out at Genoa
Justin Bijlow and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Jul 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Genoa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Market31 Jul 2028
No place for Lucas Testa in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Lucas Testa has his answer from Genoa; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market31 Jul 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Genoa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout31 Jul 2028
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Patrizio Masini has written the date down.
The dugout31 Jul 2028
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Raffaele Aresini is on it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 May 2028
The drought breaks for Genoa
10 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Napoli were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad22 May 2028
Tempers go at Genoa
Justin Bijlow was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad22 May 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Raffaele Aresini is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match20 May 2028
Genoa get the job done against Napoli
A 1‑0 win over Napoli, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Looking ahead22 May 2028
A six-pointer for Genoa
Modena next, and both sides can do the sum. Win and the table looks different; lose and it looks the way everybody has been fearing.
The dugout22 May 2028
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Alessandro Debenedetti.
The dugout22 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marco Romano, and the manager let it.
Squad22 May 2028
A row about effort at Genoa
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sebastian Otoa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout22 May 2028
A promise honoured at Genoa
Something was said to Leo Østigård and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
In brief
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Player ratings
Nobody on the pitch touched Vitinha
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The dugout
Mario Bianco: “That is the standard”
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Loan watch
The goals keep arriving from Seydou Fini’s exile
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Feb 2028
A falling-out at Genoa
Leo Østigård and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Feb 2028
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Transfer targets28 Feb 2028
$220.0K was the most the club would pay and Udinese were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match26 Feb 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Vitinha’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Genoa.
Loan watch28 Feb 2028
“I watch every Genoa game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Vasas runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
7.63, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Genoa had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Mario Bianco, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Loan watch28 Feb 2028
14 appearances at Thun and the goals keep coming. Genoa are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.