Cesare Prandelli bowed out of the Genoa job to make way for Aurelio Andreazzoli. “I leave without controversy,” but with some specific regrets.
The former Italy CT only took over in December and oversaw 24 games, resulting in four victories, 11 draws and nine defeats.
“I don’t usually like to speak in this context, but I wanted to thank all the people who collaborated with me and assure I leave without any kind of controversy,” said Prandelli in his Press conference.
“I wanted to leave this city and this club in the best way possible. There are regrets, of course, because we believed that we could build something important here and perhaps we were starting to manage that. We wanted to share a project.
“Let’s just say that in football, sometimes one incident makes all the difference. In this case, it was the 90th-minute penalty against Roma, as if we had converted that, we’d have been safe with three rounds to go and written a whole other story. Instead, we had to thank the Divine Providence of football for our Serie A status in the final game.”
Genoa drew with Roma, as January signing Antonio Sanabria insisted on taking the stoppage-time penalty and it was saved.
Eventually, they only avoided relegation on head-to-head difference with Empoli, who narrowly lost to Inter.
Their campaign went completely off the rails after selling top scorer Krzysztof Piatek to Milan in January.
“A team that is trying to survive needs those players who can make the difference in the penalty area, but at that moment, I understand the club had financial issues and a Coach has to take a step back in those moments. He cannot object.
“I asked for him to be replaced by someone who already knew Italian football, but I inherited a situation decided by others. Obviously, it would’ve been better for me to start the season and form my own team, as taking over halfway through is always tricky.
“This is a divorce by mutual consent. I am not looking to the future in any particular way, but I’d like to have a more relaxed approach. We sometimes take it too seriously and forget that at the end of the day, it’s just a game.”
