Genoa bets on German Blessin for post-Shevchenko

Genoa, penultimate in the Italian championship, bet on Wednesday on German coach Alexander Blessin, ex-technician from Ostend (Belgium), to take over from Andriy Shevchenko, ousted last Saturday. “Alexander Blessin is the new coach of Genoa and has signed a contract until June 2024,” the club announced on its website. Blessin has so far coached youth teams at RB Leipzig and the team in Ostend, Belgium.

Genoa is currently 19th, six points behind the first non-relegation player, Venice (17th). Andriy Shevchenko was dismissed just over two months after his appointment, without having managed to win a single league game. According to the Italian press, his intended successor was another German, Bruno Labbadia, ex-coach of Hertha Berlin. But the former German international would have declined.

Genoa is a historic Italian football club, born in 1893. It notably won the first Italian championship in 1898 and has nine titles in total, the last dating back nearly a century (1924). The club fell back into Serie B in the 1990s. Bought and restructured by Italian entrepreneur Enrico Preziosi in 2003, it returned to the top flight in 2007 and has just been sold to an American fund, 777 Parters.