Sat. August 5, 2023
Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. Genoa (Italy Serie A)
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK
Like last week’s opponent AJ Auxerre, Genoa are a mid-table team in their league, in this case, Italy’s Serie A. They are coming off a 7th place finish last year but didn’t qualify for Continental play. Their big splash in the transfer market was with our club, buying wide midfielder Kostas Kalfas from us for £7.5 million a few weeks back. Kalfas already has two goals in as many preseason games so I’m guessing we’ll be seeing him today.
We’ve still got a few unfit players and will play them today. GK
Manuel Perez is finally back from international duty with Mexico and will start today in net.
Andrea Rocca and
Gian Marco Fanfoni are also trying to regain match fitness and will also start. A pretty full-strength lineup today.
Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - M. Perez
D - R. Gaucho, C. Contreras, R. Hamon, S. Loucif
M - A. Bamba, G. Fanfoni, A. Rocca, G. Bolis
S - S. Andrea, Chiquinho
Dover 4 - 0 Genoa
Goals - Shanon Andrea 3 (9.6), Chiquinho (7.6)
Assists - Shanon Andrea, Arsene Bamba (7.2), Zoltan Bardi (6.9)
Man of the Match - Shanon Andrea
Other Dover Notables - Manuel Perez (7.1), Salim Loucif (7.4), Claudio Contreras (7.6), Renato Gaucho (7.4), Andrea Rocca (7.1), Gian Marco Fanfoni (7.0)
Attendance - 15,509
We scored twice in the first ten minutes and coasted the rest of the way, holding Genoa to no shots on goal. We held 57% of possession and a 21-5 (7-0 on target) shot advantage. Shanon Andrea was superb, with three goals (including a penalty after former Dover winger Kostas Kalfas committed a foul in Genoa's box) and an assist.
Season Ticket Update
-- We are now up to 5317 season tickets sold, with projections putting us around 5600 or so upon the start of the season.
Transfer IN
-- After the sale of young striker Rogelio Garcia, we needed a fifth choice striker, someone who could play in a pinch and more importantly, someone who could play a lot with the reserves. I have another deal on the table for an U18 striker but I decided to jump at an opportunity to bring 21 year old Englishman
Andy Broomes in from Manchester City in a modest deal worth £1.3 million.
Broomes was developed in Man City’s academy and spent a year on loan over at League 2 Carlisle in 2020/21, scoring 13 goals in 25 games as an 18 year old. Broomes spent the last two years playing for City’s reserves team and has no senior team games at the Premier League level to his credit. He’s got incredible speed, great determination and should be ideally suited to playing a reserves role for us here at Dover. I imagine he’ll get a few games in as a substitute for the senior team as well. A nice bargain pickup for the 2.0/3.0 rated youngster.
Dover Captain Selected
-- With the retirement of former captain Wayne Rooney, we needed to name a new leader for the club. It’s no surprise that our vice-captain from the last two years, right fullback
Salim Loucif, gets the honour. Congratulations to Salim - he’s a natural choice and we were careful not to throw him into a major leadership role until he was ready. But now, he’s 24 years old, speaks fluent English, captains his national team (Algeria) and has 54 international caps and an incredible 302 senior league games to his credit. He’s influential, a great team player and works as hard as anyone on the squad. We’re delighted - his vice-captain is new centre halfback
Saber Nasri. No less than 14 of our senior team members show delight at the announcement of Loucif as captain.
Transfer IN
-- A work permit is granted to complete a £2.2 million transfer for 18 year old Argentinian striker
Norberto Vazquez from Boca Juniors.
This is a solid 1.0/3.5 prospect with great determination, excellent speed and clinical finishing ability. He will play as an over-ager for our U18 squad (he turns 19 in a couple weeks) and I’m guessing he’ll light it up for them this year. He needs to get much stronger and while I don’t envision him being good enough to play a large role with our senior team, he could be a backup for us or be sold in the future. A good depth addition either way.
Next Up
-- We head to Hungary,
Zoltan Bardi’s home country, to face Ferencvaros in order to satisfy one of the clauses in our purchase of defender
Mwemere Mutesa.