Preziosi: ‘Ballardini a terrible Coach!’

Genoa President Enrico Preziosi did not hold back when explaining why he sacked Davide Ballardini. “He’s a terrible Coach!”

The tactician was fired today and replaced by his predecessor Ivan Juric, who had been dismissed in November 2017.

Genoa President Enrico Preziosi did not hold back when explaining why he sacked Davide Ballardini. “He’s a terrible Coach!”

The tactician was fired today and replaced by his predecessor Ivan Juric, who had been dismissed in November 2017.

“I consider him to be a terrible Coach, as in his career he was fired 13 times in 14 seasons,” Preziosi told the Corriere della Sera.

“Only at Sambenedettese in Serie C did he manage to see out the season. I won’t deny that last year he earned credit by helping us on the road to safety, but he remains only a caretaker for complicated situations. He is not capable of training a team from the start, he never makes that step up in quality.

“I am not interested in the points we have so far, because we need more. We’ve got Krzysztof Piatek, the Serie A top scorer, four strikers and 25 players in total, so it’s the bare minimum to do well.

“We have already conceded 13 goals in seven games and on Sunday we lost 3-1 at home to Parma, a team that I consider to be inferior to Genoa.

“Ballardini is a wonderful person, but he doesn’t know how to put his players on the pitch, he can’t do anything. Juric is a positive Coach and it was my mistake to confirm Ballardini at the end of the last season.

“As I’ve already said, he can handle negative results and is good at rescuing bad situations, but we cannot continue a project with a Coach who provides such a terrible spectacle on the field.

“I don’t enjoy firing him, but the decision was inevitable. We had a meeting for an hour-and-a-half, but he didn’t give me the response I wanted.

“He’s a terrible Coach!”