Thousands of fans marched towards Piazza De Ferrari, torches in their hands, a golden griffin on a half-red and half-navy background illuminating the square, fireworks illuminating the horizon, another anniversary well celebrated in the long and complex history of cricket and football of Genoa Club.
As a player and in the behind-the-scenes roles that followed, Marco Ottolini was always deeply invested in Italian football, although it is only since joining Genoa as sporting director that he has come to fully appreciate the intoxicating passion that surrounds Italy’s oldest club.
“Every year on September 7th there is a big celebration,” he told BBC Sport. “When you get there you understand what this club means to the people.
“There are a lot of young fans, children and teenagers, and then you see old people kissing and crying for the club. It gives you goosebumps!”
Genoa, founded by English expatriates, were one of the first dominant forces in Italian football, winning the inaugural championship and nine in total – their last Scudetto coming a century ago.
Fans have had to come to terms with a troubled recent past, but the club ended their 130-year milestone on Friday with victory over Bologna on their way to the Champions League, meaning they will finish 11th in Serie A after recovering after relegation, recording their best points in the top flight in nine years.
Serious questions surround the American investment group that owns them and several other clubs, 777 Partners, but those within Genoa are confident that the Italian side’s project is proving successful and sustainable.
Chief executive Andres Blazquez intends to return to European competition in the next two seasons, for the first time since 2010.
Blazquez was hired when 777 took over in September 2021, inheriting what he says was a “huge mess” from previous ownership, with the team’s payroll costing almost double what the club earned.
The acquisition was well received by fans, with Genoa UK Supporters’ Club’s Tobia Salvai telling BBC Sport in September the club was previously “poorly managed”.
However, Blazquez admits that mistakes were made in a first year that ended with relegation to Serie B, with Andriy Shevchenko appointed coach and remaining in the role for just two months, and with a one-point deduction for non-payment of taxes.
“We were unable to stay in Serie A, but we acquired players like Morten Frendrup and Albert Gudmundsson who are now some of the pillars of the current team,” adds Blazquez.
“We started cleaning up, putting in the right people to rebuild the club.”
One of them was Ottolini, who joined from Juventus in July 2022, although any ambition to reach Europe at that time seemed far-fetched when he was faced with almost 60 players on the line.
“The team’s coach called me saying ‘we only have 30 places in the dressing room, where do we put the other players?'” explains Ottolini, who was also having to placate disgruntled agents who were wondering why his client hadn’t got a place.
Ottolini began restructuring the squad – he wanted two key players for each position, extra attacking options and “Serie B specialists”.
Following the dismissal of Alexander Blessin in December, Ottolini also made the decision to appoint Alberto Gilardino as head coach – a World Cup winner and Serie A legend as a player, but someone who was coaching Genoa’s under-19 team at the time.
“I met him just to get to know him personally and I had the impression that he could have a profile for the first team,” says Ottolini, who last week extended Gilardino’s contract until the end of next season.
“Not everyone was convinced, which is normal when an under-19 coach arrives in a crucial year, but it was worth it.”
Il Grifone were promoted in second place, reducing their wage bill in the process and maintaining the eighth best average attendance in Italy despite being in the second tier.
“It confirmed that we did things well on the sporting side and we did things well on the social side and in the city,” adds Blazquez, who says the club used to take more fans to away games than the home team.
Genoa’s promotion and subsequent performance in Serie A this season has brought a lot of interest in what is proving to be a well-recruited team.
Defender Radu Dragusin, who followed Ottolini from Juventus, joined Tottenham in January in a £25m deal, Icelandic striker Gudmundsson is on the radar of several top clubs and Danish midfielder Frendrup was a rumored Liverpool target, while Argentine striker Mateo Retegui, who arrived from Tigre last summer, is in Italy’s preliminary Euro 2024 squad.
“The sporting project is to try to create a good mix of younger talents and more prepared players who can give us the backbone of the team”, explains Ottolini. “We play in front of 32,000 people every week and that can create value in younger players.”
Ottolini needs targets who accept Genoa’s football project, but selling it as a place to live is the easy part, with the port city situated between the Ligurian Sea and the Apennine mountain range. Locals call it “La Superba”.
“When you enter the club you can really smell the football, it’s on the walls,” says Ottolini about Genoa’s history and tradition.
“Then we talked about how good it is to live in Genoa, by the sea, the city is beautiful. The weather is really great.
“I’m not saying the food because they don’t eat much, but the food is also good!”
Talented midfielder Frendrup, who was swept away by the atmosphere at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris, agrees: “The club is so historic and I wanted to be part of that journey, these things made me fall in love and want to come here.
“It’s a football-crazy city. You learn to live with it, because football means a lot to the people here. The city is also just beautiful, so it’s easy to get used to it!
“We have a good team and some older players who look after the younger players, it’s a very good step for a young player like me.”
The intention this summer is to retain key players, something chief executive Blazquez is confident they will do, while also wanting the majority of new deals to be completed by the start of pre-season in July.
Genoa will hope to emulate any success on the pitch by becoming more visible to new audiences off it – there has already been an Amazon Prime documentary, while singer Rita Ora sporting the gold 130th anniversary shirt has certainly helped.
There is hope they can continue to grow, exploring the club’s history, its links with England and with Boca Juniors – which was founded by a group of Genoese migrants.
“We are carrying out more and more initiatives,” says Blazquez. “Genoa, as a city in the world, has a very rich history and what it means to be Genoese is not known by many people.”
Meanwhile, there are plans to develop the stadium they share with rivals Sampdoria, who are currently in Serie B, to meet UEFA category four criteria so that it is eligible to host games during Euro 2032, which will be held in Italy and Turkey.
When the tournament arrives, the country’s oldest club will be approaching another historic celebration.
Fans will gather, fireworks will fly, old people will kiss and cry for the club they love.
