Friendly: Genoa surprise Monaco with 2-1 victory | OneFootball

Genoa earned an impressive pre-season friendly victory over French giants AS Monaco with goals from Junior Messias and Aaron Martin.

The Grifone will begin their official 2024-25 season next Friday in the Coppa Italia first round tie against Reggiana.

With that in mind, they did well to surprise Monaco in a friendly this afternoon.

Folarin Balogun and Breel Embolo tested the goalkeeper, but it was Messias who opened the scoring for Genoa with a header on the Martin cross from the by-line.

Vitinha nearly scored moments later, smashing a shot against the crossbar, and had penalty appeals rejected.

Balogun saw a potential equaliser disallowed for offside and the Italians doubled their lead with Martin’s left-foot finish on a Marten Frendrup assist.

Mateo Retegui also forced a save and George Ilenikhena got a consolation goal late on.

Genoa 2-1 Monaco

Genoa: Leali; Martin, De Winter, Bani, Vogliacco; Frendrup, Badelj, Zanoli, Messias (Malinovskyi 56); Vitinha (Ekhator 56), Retegui (Fini 56)

Monaco: Köhn; Singo (Maripan 38), Kehrer (Valme 86), Salisu; Vanderson (Babaï 60), Camara (Matazo 60), Zakaria (Diop 60), Ouattara (C Henrique 71); Minamino (Lemarechal 86); Balogun (Ilenikhena 60), Embolo (Boadu 71)