Alexander Blessin (born 28 May 1973) is a German professional

football manager ''Football Manager'' (also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'' in North America from 2004 to 2008) is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game beg ...

and former player who was most recently the head coach of

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

Playing career

Blessin started his senior career with TSV Georgii Allianz Stuttgart. In 2001, he signed for

Antalyaspor Antalyaspor Kulübü is a Turkish professional football club located in the city of Antalya. The club's colours are red and white. They play their home matches at the Antalya Stadium. In Turkey, the club won the First League twice in 1982 and 1 ...

in the Turkish

Süper Lig The Süper Lig (, ''Super League''), officially known as Spor Toto Süper Lig for sponsorship reasons, is a Turkish professional league for association football clubs. It is the top-flight of the Turkish football league system and is run by the ...

, where he made one league appearance. After that, he played for German clubs

Wacker Burghausen SV Wacker Burghausen is a German football club based in Burghausen, Bavaria and is part of one of the nation's largest sports clubs with some 6,000 members participating in two dozen different sports. History The club was founded on 13 Novemb ...

Lokomotive Leipzig 1. Fußballclub Lokomotive Leipzig e.V. is a German football club based in the locality of Probstheida in the Südost borough of Leipzig, Saxony. The club may be more familiar to many of the country's football fans as the historic side VfB Lei ...

SC Pfullendorf SC Pfullendorf is a German sports club based in Pfullendorf, Baden-Württemberg. The 700-member club is best known for its football department, but also has departments for chess, table tennis and ice stock sport, a winter sport similar to cu ...

, 1899 Hoffenheim,

Sportfreunde Siegen Sportfreunde Siegen is a German association football club based in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia. After going through insolvency in 2008, the first team was forcibly relegated to the fifth-tier NRW-Liga. Promotion to fourth division Regionallig ...

Jahn Regensburg Sport- und Schwimmverein Jahn Regensburg e. V., commonly known as SSV Jahn Regensburg, Jahn Regensburg, SSV Jahn or simply Jahn is a German football club based in Regensburg, Bavaria. The club is based on a gymnastics club founded in 1886 a ...

SSV Reutlingen SSV Reutlingen 05 is a German association football club from Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg. History The club was founded as FC Arminia Reutlingen and was renamed SV Reutlingen 1905 in 1910. The club fused with 1. Schwimmverein 1911 to form the ...

, and

SV Bonlanden SV Bonlanden is a German association football club from the district of Bonlanden in the town of Filderstadt. History The association was founded on 4 August 1895 as the gymnastics club ''Turnverein Bonländer'' and soon developed an athletics ...

before retiring in 2012.

Coaching career

Following his retirement as an active player, Blessin joined

RB Leipzig RasenBallsport Leipzig e.V. (), commonly known as RB Leipzig, and colloquially referred to as Red Bull Leipzig, is a German professional football club based in Leipzig, Saxony. The club was founded in 2009 by the initiative of the company Red Bu ...

as a youth coach in 2012. He left Leipzig in 2020 to accept an offer as the new manager of Oostende in the

Belgian First Division A The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 season and reduced to 16 team ...

. He completed his first season with Oostende in fifth place, which led to him being linked to clubs such as

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...

and

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

, as well as being named manager of the year in the Belgian top flight. On 19 January 2022, he was hired by

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

club

as the club's new head coach under a two-and-a-half year contract, after the Italian club paid a fixed fee to activate a

buyout clause A buyout clause or release clause refers to a clause in a contract that imposes an obligation on another organisation wishing to acquire the services of the employee under contract to pay the (usually substantial) fee of the clause to the organisati ...

present in Blessin's contract with Oostende. After failing to save Genoa from relegation, Blessin was confirmed in charge of the club for the 2022–23 Serie B season, with the goal to lead the ''Rossoblu'' promptly back to Serie A. On 6 December 2022, after a string of negative results, Blessin was dismissed from his role with immediate effect.

Managerial record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blessin, Alexander 1973 births Living people German footballers TSF Ditzingen players VfB Stuttgart players Stuttgarter Kickers players Antalyaspor footballers SV Wacker Burghausen players 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig players SC Pfullendorf players TSG 1899 Hoffenheim players Sportfreunde Siegen players SSV Jahn Regensburg players Association football forwards German expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Turkey German expatriate sportspeople in Turkey German football managers RB Leipzig non-playing staff K.V. Oostende managers Serie A managers Genoa C.F.C. managers German expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in Belgium German expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Expatriate football managers in Italy German expatriate sportspeople in Italy Footballers from Stuttgart