Month: May 2008

A difference between Dutch and Italian fans

Genoa- and Napolifans celebrate together the return in Serie A

In Holland the last years there are play-offs after the competition. The Netherlands has 6 tickets to European Cup football: 1 in Champions League, 1 in pre-round Champions League and 4 in Uefa-cup. The champion of Holland at the end of the regular league is qualified to play in Champions League and the winner of the Dutch cup automaticly plays in Uefa-cup. The other 4 European places are to win in the play-offs, which makes the play-offs very important and spectacular of course. Because your season-ticket don’t count in the play-offs you have to pay a single ticket if you want to see a game. Only because of this fact many thousands “supporters” boycot the most important and spectacular games of their team in the season. They stop supporting if they have to pay.

In Italy football-supporters are more proud to the club, the players, the city or at least the shirt. Italian fans don’t think so individual as a lot of Dutch supporters. If the club needs you in the most important (and spectacular) matches of the year you have to be there to show the meaning of: to support. In the Italian language they say assistere, which means just like to support in the English language: help your team. In Holland a lot of fans first (or only) think about themselves and don’t understand the meaning of to support. The passion of the fans is one of the many reason that makes Italian football much nicer than the football in Holland. 

11 players of Parma beat Borriello: 1-0

Marco Borriello close to his 20th goal

The players of Genoa invited a new system: all balls to Borriello. Just as last week against Empoli all Genoa-players wanted Marco Borriello to score and make him topscorer of Serie A. Yesterday Leon had a great chance to score, but in stead of scoring our enfant-terrible played the ball to Borriello who was in a worse position to score and missed. Also others often played the ball to Borriello in the penaltyarea instead of trying to score themselves. Parma’s old topscorer Cristiano Lucarelli (brother of our Alessandro) succeeded in the 58th minute to score and brought Parma an undeserved 1-0 victory. Luckily also Napoli lost against Torino, so we stay on the 8th position in the standings.    

The players of Genoa after the last whistle of the referee

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20 players to bring Parma back to Serie B

Ennio Tardini stadium of Parma

Just like last week, also today Genoa plays against a team that has to fight to stay in Serie A. Parma is with 31 points number 19 in the standings and with the last 3 matches against Genoa, Fiorentina and Inter close to relegation to Serie B. Today Parma also misses 9 players because of injuries and red and yellow cards, but after last week the team of Mr. Gasperini knows that without 100% inspiration and mentalility you lose every match in Serie A. Saturday-afternoon the following 20 players went by coach to Emilia:

Goalkeepers: Lanza, Scarpi, Rubinho.

Defenders: Bovo, Criscito, De Rosa, Ghinassi, Lucarelli, Santos.

Midfielders: Danilo, Juric, Konko, Milanetto, Rossi, Vanden Borre.

Forwards: Borriello, Figueroa, Leon, Sculli, Wilson.

Unless the fact that the 7th position – with the possibility to play Uefa-cup next season – is far away after last week, Genoa today will get the support of 2.000 fans. If Genoa would have won last week it should be at least 5.000.