Marked for Eivind Helland
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Nov 2026
Arthur Theate damages knee ligaments — 38 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 38 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bologna will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Bologna may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A brace, and Jens Odgaard takes the afternoon — 8.19
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jens Odgaard provided it, and the 8.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bologna heard it as anything else.
Match31 Oct 2026
Three points for Bologna, 2‑0 the final word against Sassuolo in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.06, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Bologna
Jean Carlos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
11 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Arthur Theate was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Eivind Helland is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market5 Oct 2026
Martin Vitík wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Bologna hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Tommaso Pobega
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad5 Oct 2026
International break empties Bologna
6 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Bologna, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match12 Sep 2026
Monza made Bologna work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
The game went through Lewis Ferguson — 7.11
Marked 7.11 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Lorenzo De Silvestri falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Jean Carlos in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bologna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Daniele De Luca could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bologna can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 4 in, 6 out at Bologna
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 6 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market7 Sep 2026
Lecco come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Bologna did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Lorenzo De Silvestri falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Nicolò Cambiaghi is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Bologna
Jean Carlos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Eivind Helland
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Eivind Helland has come out of that comparison in the side, and Bologna have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Artem Dovbyk moves up the pecking order
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Bologna than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Market7 Sep 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Bologna know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.