Patrick Vieira is back in Italy, more than 14 years after he left Inter to join Manchester City in the twilight of his playing career.
Vieira, 48, has been appointed as the head coach of Genoa, succeeding Alberto Gilardino, and is tasked with keeping them in Serie A.
It is the former Arsenal and France midfielder’s fifth senior managerial posting, having worked at New York City FC in the MLS, Ligue 1’s Nice and Strasbourg, and Crystal Palace in the Premier League. It is the fifth multi-club model he has agreed to work for.
He operated under INEOS at Nice, Eagle Football at Crystal Palace, City Football Group in New York, BlueCo at Strasbourg and, now 777 Partners at Genoa.
Vieira joins Genoa — Italy’s oldest club — at a time they are struggling in the league, with only 10 points from their opening 12 games, leaving them in 17th and one point above the relegation zone. The problems on the pitch pale in significance compared to worries off it.
Yet the 47-year-old Vieira, who has taken charge of 259 league games and who has won more matches (97) than he has lost (86), will be confident of turning Genoa’s season around.
Vieira took his first training session on Wednesday and was reunited with Mario Balotelli, who played alongside him at Inter and Manchester City before being coached by him at Nice.
Balotelli’s time at Nice was cut short during Vieira’s tenure. His contract was terminated midway through the 2018-19 season despite scoring 43 goals in 76 appearances over two and a half years.
In an interview with French football magazine SO Foot in April, Balotelli blamed Vieira for his exit.
“The problem was that the way Vieira played didn’t really suit me,” Balotelli said. “I got along well with him, but on sporting matters, I didn’t agree. If I hadn’t had these problems with him, I would never have left Nice.”
Vieira had a different view, telling the Daily Mail in 2020 that it was “difficult” for him to “work with a player like Mario”, and that the Italian’s “mindset was difficult for a collective sport”.
On Wednesday, following Vieira’s first training session, Genoa posted several photos on social media and on their website, which included one of Balotelli, 34, and Vieira having a discussion.
💪💪💪 pic.twitter.com/epVYNV02zj
— Genoa CFC (@GenoaCFC) November 20, 2024
Genoa’s appointment of Vieira has caused surprise given his history with Balotelli, a player they signed less than a month ago. But Alberto Zangrillo, the club’s president, is confident there won’t be any issues.
“Mario is an intelligent person and so is our new coach,” Zangrillo told LaPresse at an academic event in Milan on Wednesday. “They will hug in front of me, I am certain they will happily co-exist.”
Although the pair’s reunion makes an intriguing scenario, Vieira’s first job will be to win over a fanbase that has been forthcoming in its protestations regarding how the club is being run, including Gilardino’s dismissal.
According to ESPN, several U.S. investors have expressed an interest in buying the club, with 777 Partners, who attempted to buy Everton this year, seeking around €170million (£141.3m; $177m). 777 Partners were given a winding-up order by the High Court in London in October.
Josimar Football then reported the American-based company’s multi-club operation had been taken over by A-Cap — a U.S. insurance group that was one of its biggest financial backers.
To add to the fans’ concerns, Vieira will also take charge of a squad that has been bled dry of its best talent.
This year alone, Genoa sold Radu Dragusin to Tottenham Hotspur for €25million, Josep Martinez to Inter for €13.5m and Mateo Retegui — Serie A’s top scorer — to Atalanta for another €22m, while offloading Albert Gudmundsson, their most creative player, to Fiorentina on loan.
There will be little time for Vieira to become accustomed to his new squad before a key match against Cagliari, who are one place ahead and three points better off, on Sunday.
Vieira’s recent spells at Strasbourg, Crystal Palace and Nice ultimately failed, though, with the 1998 World Cup winner often being criticised for his decision-making and tactical approach.
Following Vieira’s 18-month spell at Manchester City as a player, he retired at the end of the 2011-12 season, immediately becoming a development executive and joining their academy set-up.
His first managerial role for City Football Group (CFG) was to lead Manchester City’s elite development squad from May 2013. There was an interview at Newcastle United two years later but no job offer was forthcoming.
Eager to try his hand in senior men’s football, Vieira headed to New York City — a club under CFG’s umbrella — to become manager. He led them to their first appearance in the MLS Cup play-offs in his first season after finishing the season in fourth.
A job at INEOS-owned Nice followed, offering Vieira the chance to return to France, and he led them to seventh in the 2018-19 season before further improvement in 2019-20, where they finished fifth and qualified for the Europa League.
Having been linked to the Arsenal job, when Arsene Wenger left in 2018, and again when Unai Emery was sacked 18 months later, his reputation was only growing.
But it started to unravel for Vieira at Nice at the beginning of the 2020-21 campaign. He was sacked in December, having been knocked out of the Europa League and following a run of five winless matches.
He was interviewed for the Bournemouth job in February 2021 and, five months later, replaced Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace on a three-year deal.
A 12th-place finish and an FA Cup semi-final was a good return in his first season, giving the impression there was plenty of scope for development, but that is as good as it got in south London.
When Crystal Palace sacked him in March 2023 after 12 games without a win, it was not a decision taken lightly — even though he was dismissed via a phone call from Steve Parish, one of the club’s four principal owners, at 7am.
He had no issues commanding respect from the squad and in the boardroom but there were concerns about how effective he was on the training pitch and the development of the squad.
“I loved my time under Patrick,” James McArthur, who played for Vieira at Crystal Palace, told The Athletic in July 2023. “We probably didn’t step up for him at the right time.
“We had a couple of games where we didn’t have a shot on target… as a manager, you have an obligation to get your team to play well and he did. It’s down to the players to implement that and we didn’t.
“I would only ever say good things about him. For a player that has done everything in the game to become a manager and a person who is so humble is very special.”
Less than three months after he was sacked, Vieira had another job. BlueCo, the parent company that owns Chelsea, appointed him to take charge of Strasbourg in France on a three-year deal.
“He corresponds to the profile we were looking for: a manager with international experience and who has a good knowledge of Ligue 1 and its young players,” said Mark Keller, Strasbourg’s president.
After just one season in charge — in which Strasbourg finished 13th, 10 points clear of the relegation zone and 11 points shy of qualifying for Europe — both parties agreed to go their separate ways.
The owners’ hope was for them to qualify for Europe and adopt their preferred possession-based approach — but they never got that, scoring just 38 goals in 34 games.
Questions have now been raised about Vieira’s conservative philosophy at Nice, Crystal Palace and Strasbourg. But at Genoa, his job is to maintain their Serie A status. Fancy football can come later.
If he is able to arrest their slide and then kick on next season, would it be a surprise to see him back in a Premier League dugout? Absolutely not.
(Top photo: Lou Benoist/AFP via Getty Images)
