Gianluca Busio and Joel Pohjanpalo scored the goals for the hosts on Saturday. Di Francesco was delighted with the energy his players showed over the 90 minutes.
Which is the real Venezia?
"In my experience there are some steps when you build. We have shown that we are not the ones from San Siro. I was convinced of this from how I saw the boys train during the week. We have young boys or those who have no experience in this championship. The missed penalty could have cut our legs off. I like to work on the defensive work, we put Genoa players offside 7 times."
How did you work on your players' confidence?
"Sometimes we get into delicate things. We are not psychologists, but we try to touch the right chords. We were good and lucky to do it together with the company."
A signal from Pohjanpalo?
"Of self-confidence. I asked him how he was after the penalty. I waited to take him off and he wanted to play. We are happy with the goal."
Did Ruslan Malinovskyi's injury take Genoa off the pitch?
"I was hoping to get it on the last day of last year, but now I'm happy with Venezia. I'm really sorry for Malinovskyi, he touched us on days when we had already been touched by Schillaci's death. I struggle to understand if they left the match after that episode."
Antonio Candela's game in a different role?
"I saw Candela play that role last year. I know he can do it and he did well."
John Yeboah came in very well.
"If you remember, I said at the beginning of the year that creativity was missing, which cannot be missing. He and (Gaetano) Oristanio bring it to us."
We heard you screaming for 30 seconds at 27'...
"We play to score goals, in that case we had gone back at the wrong time."