Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
GENOA, Italy — Genoa has surprisingly fired coach Alberto Gilardino and reportedly already has Patrick Vieira lined up to replace him. That could have implications for new forward Mario Balotelli. Genoa is just a point above the Serie A drop zone having lost half of its league matches. But the news on Tuesday still comes as a surprise as Gilardino appeared to have turned things around, picking up four points from the two matches before the international break. Vieira and Balotelli were teammates at Inter Milan and Manchester City but fell out when Vieira was the Nice coach, eventually leading to Balotelli moving to Marseille.
