Why you should follow...Bologna

While Italian football lies dormant, it’s time to continue with our series helping folks find their team. We’ve had Genoa and Fiorentina, so let’s move on to the Coppa Italia holders and all-round team on the rise: Bologna.

History

Bologna Football Club was founded in 1909 by Emilio Arnstein and Louis Rausch. Arnstein had founded Black Star Trieste a few years earlier, but the Austrian moved to Bologna and formed his second club with Swiss dentist Rausch.

The club’s early history is a familiar tale for many of that time, one obscured by Italy’s fascist regime under Benito Mussolini, who used football as a form of nationalist pride. The modern Bologna are known for their left-leaning ultras groups, much reflective of the city and region itself.

Bologna won their first league title in 1925 in what is known as the ‘pistol scudetto’, referring to the violent clashes throughout that season, culminating with a shooting at Turin’s Porta Nuova train station when Bologna and Genoa fans met before the final showdown.

A strong team in the 1930s, they won five more league titles before World War II shut football down. Their influence waned after the war with the Grande Torino side winning relentlessly, while Inter, Juventus and Milan all came to the fore.

Their last league title came in 1964 and, until this year, their last trophy followed ten years later with the 1974 Coppa Italia.

Consecutive relegations in 1981-83 saw them drop to Serie C1 and, despite returning to Serie A, they suffered bankruptcy ten years later and reformed in Serie C1.

Within five years, they had Roberto Baggio and Beppe Signori firing them to European football, but it didn’t last.

They’ve been relegated to Serie B twice this century, but have always returned rapidly. 

The tragedy of Arpad Weisz

Bologna put an end to Juventus’ 1930s Italian football, winning several titles in the second half of the decade. A key part of their greatest team was coach Arpad Weisz, the Hungarian previously known for winning a scudetto with Inter in 1930, then known as ‘Ambrosiana’.

Weisz won two titles, in 1936-37, but was forced to flee the country after the passing of racial laws by Mussolini in 1938. He escaped to the Netherlands and coached FC Dordrecht until the Nazi occupation forced him out of work during World War II.

The Nazis arrested Weisz and his family, sending them to the concentration camps and it was at Auschwitz’s death camp that Weisz was murdered in 1944.

Weisz’s name was condemned to uncomfortable history for over sixty years until Matteo Marani’s 2007 book ‘From the scudetto to Auschwitz’ detailed the tragic story.

Bologna’s curva San Luca is named after Weisz now, a small tribute to a man who helped shape the club.

A changed home

Stadio Renato Dall’Ara was known as Stadio Littoriale during Weisz’s time and its Maratona tower included an equestrian statue of Mussolini which was torn down by a crowd of partisans the day after his surrender in 1943.

It was renamed Stadio Comunale after the war and then eventually Stadio Renato Dall’Ara in 1983 in memory of former club president Dall’Ara.

The iconic brick facade gives way to a bowl inside that blends that quintessential Italian stadium feel with a US college, all the while retaining the edge that makes it another great place to watch live football.

Land of redemption

Roberto Baggio, arguably the best footballer of the early 1990s, found himself up for sale in summer 1997 while at Milan.

Fabio Capello didn’t want him, but Parma did. They saw him as the final piece of Carlo Ancelotti’s puzzle, a potential scudetto winning signing.

But Ancelotti didn’t want him either. Baggio didn’t fit the system and Ancelotti wasn’t interested in accommodating him, a decision he’d later say he regretted.

Mid-table Bologna came calling. Baggio said yes and even embraced the symbolism of a new start by cutting his famous ponytail.

Baggio was 30, a year out from the 1998 World Cup and worried that football was moving on without him as coaches favoured systems over players.

He put in a season that ensured cult hero status in Bologna. 22 goals, nine assists and an 8th place finish meaning Bologna unexpectedly qualified for Europe.

Baggio went to the World Cup, dragged Italy to the quarter-final and did his best to make up for missing his penalty in the 1994 final by scoring against France, but they still lost the shootout.

He reportedly fell out with coach Renzo Ulivieri and joined his boyhood club Inter after the World Cup, meaning his stay in Emilia-Romagna was fleeting.

What to do in Bologna?

The best thing to do in Bologna is to eat yourself silly. You could say that about most Italian cities, but Bologna finds itself as the focal point for its regions rich culinary contribution to the world.

Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, balsamic vinegar from Modena, mortadella, tagliatelle al ragù. Need we go on? Because we can.

This is a university town with beautiful medieval architecture, great food and endless day trips to surrounding areas because of its impeccable rail links.

Other than the main attractions you’ll find online, a must see are the dried up canals around the city. You can go on a night time walking tour (and we think there’s wine involved).

The good times are back

Bologna FC are riding the crest of a wave that began with Giovanni Sartori and Marco Di Vaio’s intelligent recruitment, which translated into Thiago Motta’s 2023/24 team that reached the Champions League.

We thought that was as good as it’d get, partly because Motta left for Juventus and the Premier League plucked star players Joshua Zirkzee and Riccardo Calafiori.

But hiring Vincenzo Italiano has proved to be another intelligent move. He’s evolved the side, making do with less and even winning the Coppa Italia, the club’s first trophy since 1974.

They’re finding their feet again this season as they get to grips with another summer of losing two key players in defender Sam Beukema (Napoli) and winger Dan Ndoye (Nottingham Forest).

Star turn Riccardo Orsolini remains the main man on the right wing while young Argentine attackers Santiago Castro and Benjamin Dominguez give us reasons to be excited.

European football is slowly becoming the norm in Bologna, so why not get on board now? They’ve got Celtic coming to town in January, that might be a nice evening’s action in the Europa League.