Cesare Prandelli admits to “emotion” when he was called to take the Genoa job, but feels predecessor Ivan Juric was “very unlucky”.
The former Italy CT has struggled since leaving the Azzurri, with ill-fated spells at Galatasaray, Valencia and Al-Nasr.
Now he’s back in Serie A for the first time since leaving Fiorentina, and he was presented as Grifone Coach this morning.
“Thank you to Juric, because he gave a lot and was very unlucky,” Prandelli began the Press conference by saying.
Cesare Prandelli admits to “emotion” when he was called to take the Genoa job, but feels predecessor Ivan Juric was “very unlucky”.
The former Italy CT has struggled since leaving the Azzurri, with ill-fated spells at Galatasaray, Valencia and Al-Nasr.
Now he’s back in Serie A for the first time since leaving Fiorentina, and he was presented as Grifone Coach this morning.
“Thank you to Juric, because he gave a lot and was very unlucky,” Prandelli began the Press conference by saying.
“We hope to find our place as soon as possible. I’m very tied to emotion, so I just have to look at the colours of this historic club.
“I really hope I can help the squad and I’m sure tomorrow we’ll be united on our journey.
“I told the director [Giorgio Perinetti], there was season in Serie B, Genoa-Verona, we were 0-2 up and I told the players the game wasn’t over.
“It ended 2-2 and it was the fans who earned that draw. If we find that harmony we can grow well, the players need to know what our fans want.
“My return? I wanted to wait, I had both positive and negative experiences abroad. There was emotion when the President called me, but now I’m focused on tomorrow’s game.
“The first thing I said to the lads is that we don’t have much time, and it’d be mad to change things.
“We’ll keep the same attitude and try to make little changes as we go, I hope to see the first of those little changes starting from tomorrow.
“There are difficulties, and I hope everyone understands this is a delicate moment. The important thing is for the players to make themselves available, I want unity of intent, a team that follows us with conviction.
“I came in quickly, there’s a lot to do and plan. I talked to the captain [Domenico Criscito] and to [Goran] Pandev, and we understood that we can do important things together.
“They are important reference points.”
Prandelli was then asked how he plans to approach matches.
“You can’t be too dogmatic about systems, you need to try and work with what you have. We have the Serie A top-scorer [Krzysztof Piątek] so we need to try and exploit him.
“Right now the message I want to send is one of relative tranquility. We’ll need to be compact and have the same way of thinking.”