Genoa-Turin is someone who travels in a stubborn and contrary direction, with his special brand of special desperation.
Genoa made a fort from Marassi, while Torino struggled away from home: for this reason the guests were at great risk, especially due to their allergy to the final exams that the ranking offers them. The goalless draw is the result of a balanced, hard-fought, sharp and tactically well-prepared match by the two coaches, with the two teams trying until the last second of injury time but in fact showing that they are better at defending than attacking . At the final whistle, neither team can say they are dissatisfied: Genoa continues the positive home streak that has continued since 7 October, while Torino take a point on a pitch that has recently proved very difficult for anyone.
Like it or not, Ivan Juric has found the right fit for this Turin. He did it with strong moves, with module changes, with excellent exclusions, but it was clear that to restart after a difficult start he had to do so by focusing on something he blindly believed in, and not by coming to terms with situations he wasn’t 100% convinced of. . At the halfway point, Toro is the best of his management: this time he seems to start at a small trot without his characteristic aggressiveness, and the most discordant notes come from an attacking trio who often loses duels and from a Ricci in the usual version anonymous sight in this disappointing season. Having said that, today’s Torino confirms that they are a very solid team, in the most classic of “if you can’t win, at least draw”, something that had often failed in the management of the Croatian coach: here where Genoa had achieved astonishing results, a small step of maturity that in the past, sometimes, the Granata had failed.
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Gilardino arrives in an emergency, without Dragusin and with only 8 active men on the bench. However, if there is one thing that his Genoa team knows how to do, it is to rally together, especially within friendly walls, in times of difficulty: in the first half the team is proactive and strong-willed, takes the field authoritatively and keeps it by dirtying the gloves of Milinkovic Savic, who they will also prove providential in the second on two occasions on Gudmundsson. Obviously there is a drop in distance, but the rossoblù defend themselves in an orderly manner and make their opponents potentially dangerous only and exclusively on the dead ball: this time, after a horror schedule in the final stages of the match with 11 points lost in the last 10′, the nightmare of the Cesarini area does not manifest itself and another precious point in the key to salvation enters the rossoblù’s pocket, which the Biella coach continues to sew with stubbornness.
Tactically, the game stops due to the choices on the attacking midfield. On the grenade side, the wingers would need Vlasic to trigger the overlaps, and instead the Croatian is only noticeable for a yellow card that is too premature which affects him in everything. On the rossoblù side, Malinovskyi has real directing duties as he has to go and get the ball while it is being constructed, delegating the imaginative tasks to Gudmundsson and Messias, which however often lack precision. The defenses therefore stand out, with the rossoblù one holding up to the impact of Dragusin’s absence, and the granata one confirming itself among the best in the championship (currently fourth in terms of clean sheet): in this sense, another great performance for Buongiorno and Rodriguez, but a note of merit to the return of Djidji, who after a long injury seems to provide exactly the speed that the department lacked.
Genoa-Turin is the match of those who travel in a stubborn and contrary direction, with its special brand of special desperation. At Marassi, with choreography dedicated to Faber, a wonderful advert was staged today, perhaps nostalgic, but which should make us reflect. Neither Genoa nor Torino, compared to their palmares, are experiencing the best moment of their footballing history, with the rossoblù shuttling between A and B and Torino now condemned to mid-table Cairo-style purgatory, a placebo that doesn’t make you feel too bad but it prevents you from any dream of glory. Yet, the Ferraris was sold out, the twinned fans created a wonderful environment, which smacked of the Premier League, of other times, of the memory of De André which fit perfectly into the poetics of this afternoon: images that explain more than anything else how our football is deeply nourished by history, belonging, identity. Those who took their children to the stadium today to see these fallen nobles did so in the name of what they represented, in the history of football and in their lives, and there are no petrodollars, fantamilardiCristiano Ronaldo who care: there is a pocket of resistance to lamination, and it is this iconic, shared and recognized identity that makes you fill a stadium in January even if your team is no longer the one that used to win and seduce with results. As usual, Faber found the words.