Genoa left the Arena Garibaldi with three points and a scoreline — Pisa 1-2 Genoa — that flatters neither side but accurately reflects who controlled the contest when it mattered. The visitors scored twice before the hour mark, conceded once from the spot, and then absorbed everything Oscar Hiljemark's Pisa could produce in the final half-hour. It was enough, and it was efficient.
The match's shape was decided in a 36-minute window either side of half-time. Genoa midfielder Jeff Ekhator opened the scoring at the 19th minute, arriving into space that Pisa's midfield had vacated, and the goal carried the logic of a team that had been pressing with purpose from the first whistle. Pisa's response was disorganised rather than absent — a yellow card at 32 minutes signalled the frustration building in Hiljemark's side — and Genoa punished that disorganisation again at the 41st minute, Tommaso Baldanzi threading a second goal before the interval that gave Daniele De Rossi's Genoa a two-goal cushion to protect.
The penalty at the 55th minute, converted by Pisa, compressed the scoreline and forced a genuine contest for the final 35 minutes. De Rossi responded immediately, making his first substitution at the 56th minute and following with two more at the 61st, reshaping the midfield before Pisa could build momentum. Hiljemark matched him with two changes of his own at the 65th and 66th minutes, and the game entered a phase of tactical attrition — four more substitutions between the 70th and 87th minutes, two yellow cards in that same stretch — that Genoa navigated without conceding again. The visitors' defensive organisation, anchored by centre-back Leo Østigård and Johan Vásquez, gave Pisa's forwards no clean route to goal.
Baldanzi was the decisive individual. The Genoa attacking midfielder was involved in both first-half goals — scoring the second and creating the conditions for the first — and his movement between Pisa's lines repeatedly pulled Ebenezer Akinsanmiro and Idrissa Touré out of position. What the events log cannot capture is the consistency of his positioning: Baldanzi did not produce one moment of quality and disappear; he was the reference point for Genoa's attacking play across the entire first half, which is why De Rossi's substitution choices in the second half were defensive rather than creative. The platform had already been built.
Pisa's problem was structural before it was personnel. Four defeats in their last five Serie A fixtures — including a 5-0 loss at Como and a 3-0 defeat at AS Roma — point to a team whose defensive shape has become unreliable at both ends of the pitch. Against Genoa, the two goals conceded before half-time both originated from the same vulnerability: the central midfield pair failing to track runners from deep. Hiljemark's side did not lack effort — the penalty they won at the 55th minute showed they could still threaten — but effort without structure produces exactly this kind of result: a match that felt closer than it was.
The standings impact is significant for both clubs but in opposite directions. Genoa, with three wins from their last four Serie A matches, have built genuine momentum in the second half of the season; De Rossi's side are moving away from the lower mid-table positions that threatened them earlier in the campaign. Pisa, with one win in their last five, are drifting in the opposite direction. The gap between the clubs in the table has widened, and Hiljemark's position grows more precarious with each result.
A month from now, this match will be remembered as the afternoon Genoa's first-half discipline — two goals scored, shape maintained, substitutions timed correctly — proved that De Rossi has built a side capable of winning ugly when the occasion demands it.