# After the Drop, Genoa Women Hand the Keys to Two Battle-Tested Captains

**By Arjun Mehta**  \nPublished July 27, 2026  \nUpdated July 27, 2026

> With relegation confirmed, Genoa Women are not gambling. Giulia Rizzon and Alessia Capelletti, both on loan through 2027, arrive as the defensive spine of a rossoblù rebuild built on captaincy, familiarity and Italian pedigree.

When Genoa Women's relegation from Serie A was confirmed last season, the temptation for a small club in transition is always the same: panic-buy young, hope the loan market is kind, and pray the coach can hold the line. The rossoblù, instead, have spent the first weeks of July 2026 doing something far more deliberate. Two signings, both on loan through 2027, both from clubs that finished above them, and both bringing with them the kind of captaincy the second tier usually chews up.

Giulia Rizzon was announced on 3 July; Alessia Capelletti, arriving on a temporary deal from Juventus, follows as the second piece of the puzzle. Together they outline the spine of a team that has chosen to take Serie B seriously rather than pretend it is a pit stop.

## The Captain from Como

Rizzon's CV is the kind coaches quietly envy. Born in Crema on 24 September 1993, she came through Mozzanica's youth set-up and broke into the first team in 2009. Eleven years and more than 150 appearances later, she moved to Riozzese in 2019, the club that would become Como Women. By the time she left Lake Como for Genoa, the central defender had logged more than 250 appearances and worn the captain's armband.

That history matters because Genoa are not bringing her in to learn. They are bringing her in to organise a back line that, in Serie A, was already creaking. A player who has captained a side through promotion pushes, who knows the rhythms of an Italian campaign and who already shares a Mozzanica-rooted footballing vocabulary with several of the current squad, is the kind of low-risk, high-trust signing a relegated club rarely gets to make.

The choice is also a signal from the club's women football coordinator, Marta Carissimi, whose confirmation on a two-year contract was a quieter but no less important piece of business. Rizzon is the type of player Carissimi's project is built around: experienced, available, and still ambitious enough to relocate for the right project.

## A Keeper With a Serie A Passport

If Rizzon is the figure who will hold the dressing room, Capelletti is the answer to a more technical question. Camilla Forcinella, the previous number one, is moving on to seek a new engagement in Serie A, leaving a vacancy that, in a relegation summer, could easily have been filled by a developmental punt. Instead Genoa have gone to Juventus for a 27-year-old from Cremona, born on 13 October 1998, with more than 70 Serie A appearances on her CV.

Capelletti's path reads like a tour of the modern Italian women's elite: Mozzanica, then Inter, then stints that include Juventus and Como Women, and a last season spent at the top of the Italian pyramid. That she has agreed to a temporary move to a relegated side tells you two things. First, that Juventus saw regular minutes in their own squad hard to come by. Second, that Genoa can still sell a project to a goalkeeper who, by rights, could have waited for another Serie A opportunity.

For coach De La Fuente, the appeal is obvious. He is not asking Capelletti to discover a new league. He is asking her to repeat, at a lower altitude, what she has been doing for years: organise a defence, communicate from the back, and absorb the kind of pressure Serie B forwards can still generate when the game opens up.

## The January Foundation Already Laid

The summer business only makes sense once you rewind six months. On 2 January 2026 Genoa announced Nora Lie Eghdami, a Norwegian midfielder from Ørnes, born on 22 April 1997, on a deal running to 2028. Eghdami arrived from Brann, where she had won two Norwegian league titles and a Norwegian Cup, and she had also passed through LSK Kvinner and Norway's Under-23 set-up. Her signature was framed as the first move of a winter window, but it was also the first move of a cycle.

Six days later, on 8 January, the second arrival followed. Birta Georgsdóttir, an Icelandic striker born in Garðabær on 23 August 2002, signed a contract through 2028 after a permanent move from Breiðablik, where she had lifted the Icelandic league title. A centre-forward with international pedigree and a multi-year commitment, Georgsdóttir was the kind of signing that only made sense if the club were planning beyond the upcoming season, however that season ended.

Read in that light, Rizzon and Capelletti are not the start of the rebuild. They are the summer layer of a project that began in January, and the connective tissue is the Carissimi-De La Fuente axis: a coordinator extending deals, a head coach being given players who fit a recognisable Italian profile, and a club that is paying attention to chemistry as much as talent.

## What the Reset Is Actually Asking For

Serie B will not be a vacation. The drop from Serie A tends to hurt double for clubs with thin squads, because the margins of the second tier are tighter and the travel heavier. Genoa are not pretending otherwise. They are simply declining to compete with one hand tied behind their back.

Rizzon offers more than 250 appearances of institutional memory, a captain's voice in a young dressing room, and a centre-back who has already done the work of keeping Como competitive in higher divisions. Capelletti offers a goalkeeper who has been trained at the top of the Italian game and who can give De La Fuente a back-line that communicates in his own language. Add Eghdami's midfield steel and Georgsdóttir's goals, and the rossoblù's spine begins to look a little more like a Serie A squad in exile than a Serie B side finding its feet.

The gamble, if there is one, is that experience can outperform the natural energy gap of a relegation. The early evidence from the club's offices in Genoa suggests the bet has been placed with both eyes open, and that the two signatures on the loan contracts running to 2027 are the first line of a very specific answer to a very familiar question. The drop hurt. The rebuild, at least, looks like it has a plan.

## Sources

- [ilsecoloxix.it](https://www.ilsecoloxix.it/sport/news/genoa-women-arrivo-capelletti-juve-ihk8vjg3/) — original
- [Carolina Drago](https://www.calciogenoa.it/2026/01/02/ufficiale-nora-lie-eghdami-e-una-nuova-giocatrice-del-genoa-women/) — original
- [Alessio Semino](https://www.buoncalcioatutti.it/2026/01/08/ufficiale-genoa-women-secondo-acquisto-ecco-la-centravanti-georgsdottir/) — original
- [Giorgia Petrone](https://genoacfc.it/2026/07/03/primo-acquisto-per-il-genoa-women-giulia-rizzon-e-rossoblu/) — original