Team Focus: Gasperini Has Versatile Genoa Dreaming of Europe

Gian Piero Gasperini is a calculating coach but something doesn’t add up. He is not a numbers man and it’s probably best not to get him started on statistics. “I can’t bear them,” he huffed in La Gazzetta dello Sport. “If I read them, I don’t understand how the game was played.” Too fluid for figures, Gasperini believes his Genoa to be of a complexity more comparable to an organism in a state of constant unpredictable evolution rather than an algorithm with a precise structure. 

Amorphous they can confound arithmetic. Maybe a chameleon would be more suitable as a mascot than a griffin. To give an impression, Genoa have started games in five different systems this season. They have played with a back three, a back four, a lone front man, a strike duo and a trident, and they’re in-game shape shifters. 

“It was like a game of chess,” recalled José Mourinho after his Inter side played against Genoa when Gasperini was in his first spell at Marassi. “I made a change and he responded with a counter-move.” 

Resourceful, he has used everyone in his squad. Considering his background in youth coaching, Gasperini has never been afraid to throw kids from the academy in at the deep end like Stephan El Shaarawy in the past, Stefano Sturaro last season and Rolando Mandragora in this one [against Juventus too].  

They must be adaptable. Gasperini bristles when he hears someone defend an indifferent or poor performance on the basis that someone was used out of position. “My father had a simple criteria by which to judge players,” he explained. “Either he’s bun or he isn’t bun. He’s good or he isn’t. It’s that simple.” 

Wingers like Diego Perotti and Maxime Lestienne are expected to swap flanks. Of course that’s standard in the modern game. But what isn’t is the deployment of Juraj Kucka or Andrea Bertolacci on the left of Genoa’s forward line and in centre-midfield, the placement of Luca Antonini as a right centre-back and then advanced on the left. 

The components are so versatile as to make Genoa’s football appear total. Watching Ajax in the early to mid 90s and how their players interpreted Louis van Gaal’s game-plan was the revelation that informed Gasperini’s football philosophy. “They were fantastic,” he recalled. “They played 3-4-3 and the players danced. Everyone was on their tiptoes, coordinatissimi. After seeing them I got fed up of saying ‘Go!’ to one full-back and ‘Stay!’ to another so as not to unbalance the team. And I started playing three at the back.”  

He’s been convinced by it ever since and Gasperini was still applying it when it had long gone out of fashion, first in Juventus’ youth system then at Crotone and later at Genoa. Responsible for their return to the top flight in 2007 following 12 years of hurt in the lower leagues, once Gasperini had consolidated their position in Serie A the Grifone really took off. Five years ago they finished joint fourth, level on points with Fiorentina missing out on the Champions League only on head-to-head. 

For Gazzetta Genoa had played the best football in Italy, better even than the champions Inter, who would sign Thiago Motta and Diego Milito from them that summer and win the treble the following season. A tactical triumph, at the time almost every other team in Italy played with a narrow midfield diamond. No one except Genoa, Napoli and then Udinese had any attacking width. They exploited it to devastating effect and soon everyone followed suit. Variations of three-at-the-back became the default system in Serie A. 

Upon seeing Italy use it to put Spain in difficulty at the Confederations Cup, van Gaal, motivated also by the loss of Kevin Strootman, adopted it again prior to the World Cup in Brazil. So let’s say Gasperini had a small hand in the Dutchman coming full circle. 

Like in 2009, Genoa are back in the top four. If the season were to end today, they’d again miss out on the Champions League on head-to-head, this time to Napoli. Their games make for fascinating viewing because of their approach. They play with intensity, are bold and aggressive but less dirty than their disciplinary record of 34 yellows and 3 reds - only Parma’s is worse - would indicate. 

“My idea is to shorten the playing area, assault it,” Gasperini revealed. “I can play three, four or even nine at the back. What counts is the players’ reading and anticipation of the play, which no one does anymore, and then the tackles that referees call fouls for [i.e what you can get away with]. If you succeed, the fans go crazy. If you don’t, you get whistled…” Against Juventus, for instance, left-sided centre-back Giovanni Marchese would step up into midfield to fill the position left by Bertolacci as he went up to meet Leonardo Bonucci to stop him playing out from the back. 

Gasperini won’t allow his players to sit back. “If you wait [for your opponent], you see the ball three times in 40 minutes. When they make too many passes, I get agitated. I say ‘Go, press them high!’ I send everyone to press. That way every player moves according to their teammate. It’s defending by running forward. But if a cog in the mechanism doesn’t work you can concede seven like Roma did against Bayern.” 

How Genoa go about imposing their play is genuinely out of the ordinary. Unlike most other teams in Serie A they don’t have a central playmaker, a Pirlo or a Pjanic, a Borja or a Biglia. Gasperini argues: “There isn’t any need to have an illuminato playing all the passes. If the ball has to go 5m, I can make that pass too.” He isn’t interested in dominating possession. He wants to win it back close to goal and pose an immediate danger like his team did for their first goal in Sunday’s 3-0 win against Cesena at the Manuzzi. 

Genoa are direct. They ‘only’ make 388.5 passes per game. Roma by comparison string together more than 600. Juventus, Napoli, Inter and Fiorentina more than 500 each. Other teams build from the back, but again they usually go through a regista in the middle. Genoa don’t. Marchese, a former full-back, used on the left-side of a three-man defence makes more passes per game [41.3] than any other player in Rossoblu. There’s a reason for this. “At least one of the two outside centre-backs is a former full-back,” Gasperini says. “They’re the best at imposing the play, they anticipate the things well and are the best at coming out with the ball. Antonini has been a revelation on the right side of the back three.” 

But it’s the combinations on Genoa’s left that cause teams so many problems; 41% of their attacks come down that flank. If Marchese marauds forward and crosses for either Alessandro Matri or Mauricio Pinilla, Perotti, the winger, will drop into midfield and Luca Antonelli into the three-man defence. He’s a former full-back after all. 

The magic roundabout on either side can boggle the mind of the opposition. Like Marco Borriello and Diego Milito before him, both of whom came close to becoming Capocannoniere while at Genoa, the much maligned Matri is thriving. Sunday’s goal was his sixth of the season and had he not missed a penalty he would have had another. All have come on the road, which is where Genoa have had most success. 

The fixture list dealt them a tough schedule at home, although there remains the pride of inflicting a first defeat of the season in Serie A on champions Juventus. The atmosphere hasn’t always helped either, at least initially. After drawing with Empoli in their first game back at Marassi following the defeat to Samp in the derby, Gasperini, upon hearing the fans boo and whistle his team, had said: “If a minority make a noise every time we mistake a pass maybe it’s almost better to play away from home.” 

Still yet to lose on their travels, they’ve taken 15 points from a possible 21. Only league leaders Juve have a better record. “It’s a great moment for us. Not even I expected us to be so high up the table,” Gasperini told Radio Anch’io lo Sport. “We deserve it. We’re doing something extraordinary.” Asked if a return to Europe is realistic, Gasperini remained cautious. “We’re only thinking about the next game,” he muttered. Carry on like this though and there’s no reason why the Grifone can’t spread her wings and fly a little further afield.

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