Sadly, we'll never know if CC favoured il Grifoni or il Doria
Orr’s clearly enjoying this monumental day…
In honor of everyone’s favorite Genovese (except of course the Native Americans), here’s a quick look at the history of the teams from Columbus’ hometown and how they’re faring today.
Genoa C.F.C (that’s Cricket and Football Club) is the oldest football club in Italy. The club enjoyed its highest successes in its early years, with its nine national titles making it fourth all-time behind only Juventus, Inter, and Milan.
Having last won top-tier hardware in 1937 (Coppa Italia) however is not what one might expect from a club as storied and established as Genoa. Il Grifone have bounced up and down from Serie A to Serie B (suck it, Bwin) numerous times, with a punitive year down in Serie C1 as recently as 2005-2006.
After being found guilty of match-fixing to secure their promotion from Serie B, Genoa went from being promoted to Seria A to relegation down to the third division. They moved back up to Serie B the next season (although embarrassingly did not win the C1 Championship, losing out to Spezia) where they again earned promotion and thus began their current spell in the top flight.
U.C. Sampdoria, the other side with whom Genoa share the Stadio Luigi Ferraris, is a much younger club, having been founded in 1946 with the merger of two existing teams.
The pattern of success and failure exhibited by Sampdoria has been almost the opposite of their older neighbors and rivals. After extremely lean years at the beginning, Sampdoria have seen their greatest successes come in the last two decades. Their one Scudetto in 1990-1991 will not bother Genoa fans (they have 4 Coppa Italia trophies also) but they have enjoyed far more success in Europe than Il Rossoblu. Sampdoria won the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1990, and barely lost out to mighty Barcelona in injury time, 1-0 for the 1992 European Cup.
Recently, Sampdoria has solidified itself into a deserving Serie A squad since rising for the last time in 2003. In my opinion, they have some of the coolest uniforms in football, great colors, and a sweet badge. (You do see the profile of a sailor, don’t you?)
So how are the two faring so far this season?
Genoa finished last season in ninth place and after six weeks find themselves right in the middle again at 10th. After a start that could be called very even (two wins, two draws, two losses) Genoa has built a foundation from which it could spring higher and improve on last season. But I don’t think it will.
What I think will hurt Genoa is a lack of firepower. Aging striker Luca Toni, inconsistent Rodrigo Palacio, and journeyman Giuseppe Sculli won’t be able to provide the goals necessary to lift Genoa into European contention. They also have young Mattia Destro on loan from Inter and would be wise not to waste his talents but have so far used him only once this season (he scored). He is certainly one to watch for Italy in the coming years. Genoa have a solid backline anchored by youngsters Domenico Criscito and Andrea Ranocchia, along with the experienced Dario Dainelli, but their football just won’t be inspired enough to get them out of the middle of the table.
Sampdoria supporters, however, will be disappointed with their side’s performance so far, at least domestically. They finished fourth last season but so far sit at fourteenth after a string of rather uninspired performances and only one victory. After crashing out of the Champions League to Werder Bremen, they have made a decent go of it in the Europa league with a draw at Eindhoven and a win over Debrecen.
Overall, they boast a good, Italian strike force with new Azzurri regulars Antonio Cassano and Giampaolo Pazzini being joined by exciting youngster Nicola Pozzi (2 goals in 2 starts). Where I believe they will run into problems is depth. With a European campaign that could conceivably stretch out, I fear that Samp won’t have the overall squad quality to finish the job or match their domestic performance from last season. They won’t finish in the bottom half where they sit now but I think they will be have to be content fighting it out for another Europa League spot next term.
So Orr, is there a prize for the winner of this local derby? And if so, please tell me it’s related to a salami.
@OM – Not that I know of, just pride and points. It has a cool name at least, the Derby della Lanterna.
Don’t we have a new Italian poster? Maybe you wouldn’t need to sell ad space JT if you didn’t try to do everyone else’s job.
Hey I wrote this! And it was sponsored by the number 5.
/purple vampire’d
Oh, Orr did write this. I totally missed the italics at the start of the post.
I was thinking it was really weird for JT to devote so many words to the topic.
@bergkampedios
Indeed, this was Orr. Until the man gets inducted somewhere along the way, it’s posted under my name (though not my byline!)
Two Genoa posts in a week? Crazy.
Apologies – like Ryan I also missed the italics. I promise not to yell at things I don’t pay appropriate attention to any more.
/reasonable likelihood it will happen again.