$22.2M on the table at Sassuolo. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Eivind Helland had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Casertana waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bologna is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Simone Giordano has just signed for Bologna, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mikel Amondarain was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Modena have accepted the money. What Bologna do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The deal with Bari is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
$2.1M on the table at Virtus Entella. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
10 seasons and 405 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
“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 rules permit it and it stings anyway. Max Anastasio has agreed terms with Catania for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Jens Odgaard and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Francesco Castaldo is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bologna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
17 games, 1 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Bologna now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad29 May 2028
13 new faces, and Bologna are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout29 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Sandro Fortunato to a room that had heard them before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Łukasz Skorupski is on it.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Bologna know it.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nicolò Cambiaghi signs something — a contract at Bologna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Niklas Pyyhtiä's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bologna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
14 goals in 30 games at AlbinoLeffe — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bologna updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout15 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Sandro Fortunato left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Thijs Dallinga is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jens Odgaard signs something — a contract at Bologna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bologna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Bologna, another week without a signature from Łukasz Skorupski.
The dugout8 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sandro Fortunato, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout8 May 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Joaquín Sosa's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Oussama El Azzouzi scored, was marked 7.75, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jesper Karlsson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Nobody at Bologna will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Luca Lai has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Riccardo Orsolini had Bologna level again within 4 minutes, and Inter never got to play with a lead at all.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Thijs Dallinga will call it something else in private.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bologna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bologna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
14 goals in 30 games at AlbinoLeffe — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bologna updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sandro Fortunato after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Thijs Dallinga is on it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bologna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sandro Fortunato after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Nobody at Bologna will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jesper Karlsson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
16 goals in 28 games at Reggiana — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bologna updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout3 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Sandro Fortunato to a room that had heard them before.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kevin Bonifazi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Bologna needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Bologna will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
4 goals in 26 games at Ospitaletto — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bologna updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Position 6 on 53 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicola Bagnolini will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Bologna are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
14 goals in 27 games at Reggiana — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bologna updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
14 goals in 27 games at AlbinoLeffe — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bologna updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Bologna pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sandro Fortunato after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Pyyhtiä will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
13 goals in 26 games at AlbinoLeffe — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bologna updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
6 goals and a season average of 7.20. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sandro Fortunato, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
0‑3 to Atalanta, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bologna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bologna, and 12 appearances in 39 say he has earned the hearing.
1 for Oussama El Azzouzi, marked 7.81, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jesper Karlsson has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Oussama El Azzouzi. 1‑0 against Cesena, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bologna, and 7 appearances in 29 say he has earned the hearing.
7.99, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicola Bagnolini will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jesper Karlsson, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sandro Fortunato, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Danilo scored, was marked 7.60, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Pyyhtiä will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Bologna and Genoa, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monza have kept their man, and Bologna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer from Inter for Riccardo Orsolini was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jesper Karlsson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Bologna has to find a result from somewhere.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 12 gone
That is the business done at Bologna until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Pineto waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bologna is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The name of Jesper Karlsson has come up in conversations Bologna were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Bologna asked and Fluminense said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bologna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Crotone had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bologna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Bologna and Napoli, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Abdel Rahim Alhassane and Bologna agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bologna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Vicenza waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bologna is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The fee is $7.6M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Cagliari drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
“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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Bologna and Cagliari have settled on $7.6M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
AC Milan paid $6.1M and Bologna took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“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.
The phone has started ringing about Benjamín Domínguez again, and this time the name on the line is Mantova. Bologna are listening politely and promising nothing.
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bologna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Lecce for Emil Holm was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Bologna had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
“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.
Add another name to the list: Torino have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jonathan Rowe. The answer from Bologna has not changed — yet.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Napoli have kept their man, and Bologna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Bologna scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Two goals and a mark of 8.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.99, and 2 involvements.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Bologna will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Łukasz Skorupski is on it.
Successful dribbles: 27. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Oussama El Azzouzi scored, was marked 7.54, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Emil Holm scored, was marked 7.81, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Bologna and Fiorentina in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
“I watch every Bologna game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Pogon runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sandro Fortunato after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Łukasz Skorupski knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“I did not go to Ascoli to sit and watch. I want to come back to Bologna and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 26 matches say the rest.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Sandro Fortunato to a room that had heard them before.
Position 2 and 28 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
A brace, and Jens Odgaard takes the afternoon — 8.97
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jens Odgaard provided it, and the 8.97 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
3 goals inside twenty minutes with Jens Odgaard in the middle of it, and Monza unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Marked 8.44 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sandro Fortunato on a 4‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Bologna can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
“I watch every Bologna game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Leganés runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Riccardo Orsolini signs something — a contract at Bologna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
7 goals in 9 games at AlbinoLeffe — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bologna updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nicolò Cambiaghi signs something — a contract at Bologna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jesper Karlsson is on it.
Torino next, and one man in the Bologna dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Bologna have no good answer.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Riccardo Orsolini 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rasmus Højlund. 1‑0 against Frosinone, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Riccardo Orsolini and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sandro Fortunato, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Jonathan Rowe has moved up it.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Bologna would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Atalanta had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Bologna did not stop to explain themselves.
Something was said to Oussama El Azzouzi and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sandro Fortunato on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Riccardo Orsolini signs something — a contract at Bologna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bologna, and 3 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Sandro Fortunato left the room before anybody could ask which.
Ten men and a goalkeeper behind him, and it still finished in the net. He knew before anybody told him, and nobody at Bologna needed to.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Torbjørn Heggem's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bologna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Something was said to Torbjørn Heggem and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Bologna, another week without a signature from Eivind Helland.
Cesena next, and one man in the Bologna dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Bologna that is a harder question to answer.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jonathan Rowe has his answer from Bologna; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Sandro Fortunato could afford to be generous.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Riccardo Orsolini signs something — a contract at Bologna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Cremonese in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Bologna is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Marked 6.96 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bologna, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sandro Fortunato was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Bologna dressing room was either.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bologna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Two goals and a mark of 8.77 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
$5.6M was the most the club would pay and Padova were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Bologna are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“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.
Bologna have gone to Padova with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Bologna may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 16 signed and 36 gone
That is the business done at Bologna until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $5.9M — a club that wants Faitout Maouassa enough to be asked twice.
Add another name to the list: Juve Stabia have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Antonio Raimondo. The answer from Bologna has not changed — yet.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad6 Sep 2027
17 new faces, and Bologna are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Bologna scored in the 94th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Bologna asked and Crystal Palace said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The fee is $490.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Napoli drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Riccardo Orsolini. 3‑2 against Napoli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Bologna asked and Union Berlin said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Giovanni Grasso has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bologna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventus have kept their man, and Bologna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 offer went to Torino this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dario Palmieri is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vincenzo Ravelli has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Alessandro Parise is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bruno Conti has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bologna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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.
Bologna asked and AS Roma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
18 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tommaso Pobega trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bologna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Farense had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The offer went to Torino this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AC Milan have kept their man, and Bologna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Bologna can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bologna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bologna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Bologna asked and Torino said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Bologna asked and Cremonese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Bologna people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Bologna are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
55 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bologna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lumezzane waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bologna is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The fee is $2.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Empoli drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer from Carpi for Kevin Bonifazi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Roma have kept their man, and Bologna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nicolas Haas and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
20 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bologna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“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.
Rasmus Højlund and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Renate paid $660.0K and Bologna took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Bologna asked and AS Roma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Bologna asked and Cagliari said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Valerio Aureli is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Samuel Mbangula trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The offer from Lazio for Nicolò Cambiaghi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bologna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
$4.2M on the table at Cagliari. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
$180.0K was the most the club would pay and Torino were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Bologna asked and Napoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tommaso Pobega trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
$2.8M settles it between the clubs for M'Bala Nzola
Cagliari have accepted the money. What Bologna do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer from Altamura for Mikel Amondarain was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“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.
$180.0K on the table at Torino. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 8 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Bologna has been clear about where Tommaso Pobega stands, which is more than many ever get.
“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.
“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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jordi Jaku has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Bologna asked and AS Roma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: Sorrento have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mikel Amondarain. The answer from Bologna has not changed — yet.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Federico Bernardeschi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Bologna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikel Amondarain is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Position 6 on 61 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Artem Dovbyk and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Bologna pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Bologna will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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 manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bologna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bologna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Valerio Aureli and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sandro Fortunato after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo De Silvestri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A season average of 7.28 with 22 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Up for the corner, and Petar Sučić delivers — 7.92
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Petar Sučić scored, was marked 7.92, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
8 goals in one match, Artem Dovbyk on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Bologna and Genoa.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Petar Sučić has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Two goals and a mark of 8.47 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Bologna and Juventus, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sandro Fortunato after 3‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Two goals and a mark of 9.03 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mikel Amondarain will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Federico Bernardeschi will call it something else in private.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo De Silvestri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Position 6, 55 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
7.78, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
With 8 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bologna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Bologna told Petar Sučić something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Tommaso Pobega will call it something else in private.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bologna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Bologna can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Artem Dovbyk will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Bologna escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
7.86, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Bologna know it.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bologna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Cagliari defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mikel Amondarain will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bologna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Napoli have kept their man, and Bologna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bologna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bologna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Farès Bousnina has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Bologna people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Bologna close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“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.
8.38. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Bologna will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Two goals and a mark of 8.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Lennon Miller, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.84
A mark of 7.84 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Udinese have kept their man, and Bologna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Mikel Amondarain has come up in conversations Bologna were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
8.46. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bologna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Up for the corner, and Juan Miranda delivers — 7.87
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Juan Miranda scored, was marked 7.87, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Bologna asked and Napoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Arthur Theate's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bologna, and 0 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Bologna are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bologna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Two goals and a mark of 8.52 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Lewis Ferguson was one of the reasons people came, and $33.7M does not replace that by itself.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Bologna asked and Monza said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Bologna asked and Empoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The deal with Udinese is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Lewis Ferguson has his answer from Bologna; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Add another name to the list: Potenza have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mikel Amondarain. The answer from Bologna has not changed — yet.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
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.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Sandro Fortunato to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo De Silvestri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Como spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Marked 8.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A performance of 8.10 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Lewis Ferguson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Bologna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 16 combined actions and a mark of 7.05, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Bari; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
A brace, and Artem Dovbyk takes the afternoon — 8.85
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Artem Dovbyk provided it, and the 8.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bologna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Artem Dovbyk. 2‑0 against Lecce, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Two goals and a mark of 8.69 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bologna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Lewis Ferguson scored, was marked 7.49, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Marked 7.50 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Bologna had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sandro Fortunato, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Samuel Mbangula
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Bologna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bologna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Bologna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo De Silvestri is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Riccardo Orsolini signs something — a contract at Bologna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bologna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Bologna can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
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.
A mark of 7.87 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Flavio Junčaj has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Sandro Fortunato left the room before anybody could ask which.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
200 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.
Marked 7.84 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
A mark of 7.87, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad26 Oct 2026
7 new faces, and Bologna are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Something was said to Abdel Rahim Alhassane and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.58 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
7.91, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Bologna and Cagliari in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bologna, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori 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.
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.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Nadir Zortea’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Bologna needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Bologna. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Marked 8.14 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Arthur Theate has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
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.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Lewis Ferguson will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Bologna escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
7.96, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Bologna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“I watch every Bologna game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ravenna runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sandro Fortunato after 1‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
1 for Tommaso Pobega, marked 7.75, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tommaso Pobega. 2‑1 against Monza, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.17 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
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.
“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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The phone has started ringing about Mikel Amondarain again, and this time the name on the line is Cosenza. Bologna are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Monza in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
7.63, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Austin FC have kept their man, and Bologna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Marked 7.29 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Jens Odgaard was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Tommaso Pobega had Bologna level again within 1 minutes, and Parma never got to play with a lead at all.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Bologna offered $3.8M; CSKA Sofia said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
1 for Lewis Ferguson, marked 7.90, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jacopo Bonaventura has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Tiziano Andreoli has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alberto Pellegrini has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
In brief
Player ratingsRiccardo Orsolini was on a different afternoon to everybody else
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Bologna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The offer went to CSKA Sofia this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo De Silvestri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Bologna that is a harder question to answer.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Dolomiti Bellunesi waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bologna is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 phone has started ringing about Kevin Bonifazi again, and this time the name on the line is Cagliari. Bologna are listening politely and promising nothing.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bologna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Bologna are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“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.
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.
Add another name to the list: Dolomiti Bellunesi have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Massimo Pessina. The answer from Bologna has not changed — yet.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lewis Ferguson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.