This is the The Genoan Journey, and my plan is to take the reader on a quest. This adventure will involve watching every Genoa league this season and becoming a die hard fan, writing about the ups and downs as well as the emotions I am feeling throughout this potentially mega long year.

If you fancy giving the last post a read, fill your boots here.

One cold winter evening last October, I spent 90 minutes or so soaking up one of the most engulfing, and electric atmospheres I have ever witnessed. Sampdoria made their way east to the home of Juventus, where they were outplayed, outfought and out manned by their Turin counterparts. An experience like no other, the Juventus crowd turn up with an expectation of an emphatic win and anything less than that is simply not good enough.

That cold evening, the fans were treated to a comfortable 4-2 victory, with Samps goals coming out of nothing – including a goal by nearly Juve man Patrick Schick. One major thing I took from the game that night was the sheer quality The Old Lady have within their ranks compared to other teams in the league… a clear apparent in the last 6 seasons for sure in which they have romped home to the title convincingly each time. Although, this season feels different.

Of course, there is Milan – who have invested like they have just won the Euromillions – snapping up a whole team and half worth of incredible talent, including the likes of Leonardo Bonucci, arguably the player of the season for Juventus last season. So far, they are looking undeniably fantastic but I am wondering whether this team will come unstuck? A sudden assembly of players like this leaves me wondering how prepared they can be so a long season ahead.

It would be unfair to talk about one Milan club and not the other. For me, Internazionale are a force to be reckoned with… maybe they haven’t made the big signings like Milan have this summer but they do have a new boss at the helm in Luciano Spalletti, former Roma manager. Spalletti is a man who will know how to get the best of the players that came in last season and failed to make a true stamp on the team – perhaps players like Joao Mario and Gabriel can make that leap under him. It would be poor form to not mention the genius of Mauro Icardi – Captain Fantastico – I make him favourite for the golden boot this season.

Finally, the last challengers to Juve this season will be Napoli. A lot of people are calling them the Spurs of Italy – and not because they put the pressure on or because they make DVD’s out of cup semi final wins. But Napoli are in possession of a young quality team and have had a great transfer window. Not because they have brought in any fantastic talents but because they have managed to keep hold of such key players like Marek Hamsik, Lorenzo Isnigne and Dries Mertens. They have some fantastic attacking talent and a lot of Serie A lovers hold Napoli manager Sarri in high regards, stating that he embodies some of the most free flowing and ‘sexy’ football in Europe.

And this so nicely leads onto this weeks match, The Old Lady is in town. And what a fine mature woman she is eh? Undeniably still front-runner for the league, but as discussed I am not sure it will be as easy as it has been in certain seasons. After losing such beautfiul players like Dani Alves and Leonardo Bonucci, a lot of us wrote them off for this season – at least at top European level. But shrewd signings in Douglas Costa and especially Blaise Matuidi are fantastic for them, it was more apparent then ever in the Supercoppa Italia that Khedira doesn’t really fancy it anymore, and its fair to say that Marchisio has become a liability in terms of injuries – with the most recent occurrence a 4 week lay off with a dodgy knee.

One really quick side note is that I do believe Stephen Lichensteiner resembles a more athletic and arguably less sweaty Lee Evans. But I will let you decide that,

Enough about everyone else, we all know why we are here, To Talk Genoa. I wouldn’t say that this is a mountainous task, but it certainly will be a steep hill for The Griffins. Maybe, just maybe… this is when the Griffins spread their wings and take flight to goals goals goals heaven. And after last week, why cant we dream? Sassuolo were dicked down by Genoa, and couldn’t handle the physicality as well as the pressing game Juric brings – Gonzalo Higuain is going to be no match for the muscular gods of Genoa. Last season this game proved to be one of the early surprises as Genoa came out victorious with a 3-1 victory last November, could the same occur this time round?

The Game

Again, 5 minutes before kick off I find myself hungover searching for streams, this feels like a tradition. But finally, a solid HD stream appears. One thing that I really loved before kick off was the crowd all singing along to “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, what a magical moment and one we usually see in the Premier League with Liverpool. We line up exactly the same as we started last weekend against Sassuolo, and in fairness the team played very well last week so why the fuck not? Looking forward to seeing how the team operates in these vastly different circumstances. Will the team able to press Juventus in the same way they can other teams? I am not so sure but we will soon find out.

Juventus look strong, but haven’t opted for any of their boys this year – notably Matuidi who in my opniom probably should be ahead of Khedira in the pecking order. Of course the main man to look out for is Dybala, and you may think this is a hot take, but I do believe Paulo Dybala to be the best player in Serie A – I am sure nobody has ever pointed that out before.

The Result

What an incredible start! 20 seconds in and Goran Pandev rolls back the years with a cheeky nutmeg and sqaures the ball to Miralam Pjanic… who then scores a fantastic own goal, beating Buffon and making the legend look silly. Only joking of course, it was very lucky but still fantastic for us. The Stadio Lugi Ferraris explodes with screams of happiness, an absolute perfect start. Just as we settling back into the stream Perin makes an absolute inredible stop from a Juve free kick – this is our captain and he is leading by example!

With the crowd roaring behind them Genoa press on and big man Adel plays a snappy ball into the feet of Mr Andrey ‘Strong Man’ Galabinov. And with that, young centre half Danielle Rugani takes the mans legs. At first the referee stops and thinks about it – he is not too sure. And then it happens… the first use of VAR in a Genoa game – TENSION. Seconds feels like hours as we wait for the decision and then he blows his whistle – its a fucking penalty! And who to take it? Of course it is Galabinov and of course he scores – 2-0 against the champions! It was interesting to note that throughout the game Galabinov floated towards Rugani much more than Chiellini, using his strength to battle Rugani away. Perhaps he had been told to target the much younger and significantly less experienced defender.

At this point it is dreamland, and we are only 10 minutes in. The stadium is rocking and I am not sure I have heard or witnessed an atmosphere like it – and I’m watching through a dodgy stream! Juve instantly retaliate and come at Genoa, and it is at this point that Genoa seem to be rocked with perhaps no reason to be fearful. It is almost like the eye mask had been removed from the eyes of Genoa, and they had been forced to wake up from this fantasy.

It begins with a yellow card for Gentiletti as Juve pile the pressure on and look for holes. And as the Old Lady comes forward she takes full advantage of these gaps and Dybala has the ball squared to him to make it 2-1 with a very tidy finish. Comeback on?

The game continued like this for a while. Juventus dominating possession but not quite finding that killer pass to get through the Genoa back line. During these moments Dybala had a free roam of the pitch and was at times putting on a show for the fans. Often Genoa were defending with 11 guys behind the ball and were looking to spring counter attacks by hitting the ball long up to Galabinov and using his fantastic hold up ability to beat their opposition on the break. In fact, at around the 30 minute mark one of these attacks ends in a Galabinov header that goes just wide.

The first half ended as it started with drama aplenty. To begin with, we are treated with a wonderful world class goalkeeping display with Mattia Perin keeping out not only Dybala’s finish, but the follow up for Mario Mandzuckic also. Coming into this experiment I didn’t quite believe the hype around this man but now I am starting to see it. But then, just as we think we are safe for the half we get undone by the sheer pace of Juan Caudrado. This man is lightening quick and even our very quick Diego Laxalt can not keep up with him as he bares down on goal.

Caudrado goes to square the ball and it takes a deflection up on to Lazovic’s arm… at first the referee points to the corner but after consultation he decides to go for the opinion dividing VAR. At this point in the game I really had no idea what was going on, my stream was in Italian and there was a lot of confusion in the players faces. This wait went on for way too long – 4 minutes of waiting around for a decision is ridiculous. And then it happens – Luca Banti points to the spot. Dybala gets his second of the game from the spot and the two teams go into half time with 2 goals apiece. After such a promising start it is shame that Genoa couldn’t hold onto their lead – to begin with it looked like a lack of confidence but as the game continued I think it was more down to the quality in Juventus’ ranks proving decisive.

The second half contained much less drama unfortunately, and seemed to turn into a bit of a run of the mill game for Juventus. That is not to say that Genoa looked significantly worse but it was clear that the legs were getting tired through their high pressing game and chasing the ball around for large periods. Not only this, but a substitution of Khedira for new man Matuidi put the game to bed essentially as he dominated the midfield when coming on.

The second half begins with a few decent attacks from either side and a great run by Higuain who manages to take it around 3 Genoa men before being fantastically dispossessed by the ever running Diego Laxalt, AKA the N’golo Kante of the left wing. A running theme throughout the game was this continuous duel between our man Laxalt and Juan Cuadrado. In fact, the third goal came from the Columbian man. Gentiletti was drawn out of position and Cuadrado snuck in behind Laxalt – he turns him inside out and slots into the top bins past a helpless Perin. Despite this, Laxalt had a fantastic game and even carved out a decent change in the second half – the ball just skimming wide the post from 25 yards.

Towards the end of the game we saw a few substitutions, including a debut for Gianluca Lapadula and young Argentine Centurion. Lapadula came on and looked sharp, and looked to cause a few issues for the Juventus defence although nothing concrete came about. On the other hand Cenutrion didn’t look that great and was fairly quiet.

As the game petered out there was still time for Paulo Dybala to produce one final piece of magic. As Genoa pushed forward and looked for a late equaliser Juventus broke the attack down and launched their own counter. Higuain slides the ball over to Dybala who is one on one with Gentiletti – he steps inside onto his left and drives the ball past Perin at his near post. As I said at the start of the post, I do believe this boy is one of the best in the world and performances like these are the reason why he is so talked about in Europe.

As the game finished, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of frustration. After leading 2-0 it looked as if Genoa could maybe go on and take something away from the game but it just wasn’t to be. The quality of the opposition was too much for us and when you have players in your ranks like Dybala and Matuidi, defending a lead for 80 minutes almost seems implausible.

There are still great points to take away from the game. Genoa looked fantastic in the opening 10 minutes and certain individuals can walk away from this game with their heads held truly high. I thought Perin, Laxalt and Galabinov all had fantastic games as well as Bertolacci did well to play as well as he did against a midfield of Juve’s quality.

For me, the Man of the Match has to go to Mattia Perin, without him the game could well have been over by half time and I thought he had a fantastic game – a true leader on the pitch. A close second for the Man of the Match was Diego Laxalt, he had a solid game and looked like he can cause some problems for defences this season. Alternatively, my dick of the day has to go to Centurion… as I said the boys comes on and gives very little, then to top it off misses an open goal with a free header (although the play had been called back for a free kick). Shambles!

A close second for Dick of the Day was the VAR system, well maybe not the VAR itself but the time it took to get a decision was very annoying – really slowed down the game and left everyone with their dicks between their hands – hopefully this can be improved as the season progresses.

Next week, we travel to Udinese and off the back of the first two games I am going to predict a 2-1 win for us. We should have Lapadula ready to start by then and the team genuinely looks great – we caused the champions a lot of problems and looked like we can go on to be a threat this season if we continue to play this fantastic pressing style.