Bologna on my mind: Who is scared of Joey Saputo? (5 April)

Written by: Massimo Sampaolesi. Translated by: Carlotta Belluzzi.

Losing to Fiorentina is never a great experience, and indeed it was not great to lose this time, either. It’s a derby, but it’s more a derby between cities than a sports competition. This is our fifth consecutive loss against Fiorentina. It’s annoying, infuriating. But it’s forgivable: at present, Bologna has not reached the level of the team owned by the Della Valle brothers, and our defeat is therefore not surprising.

Bologna lost this match in two ways: on the left side, where Tello often forced Krejci to play defensively, and in the duel between Verdi and Sanchez. Sanchez was anticipating Simone’s moves, effectively making one of our stronger players innocuous. The difficulties in these two areas caused us to miss some fundamental opportunities. Destro’s work became futile too, as he often had to play as midfield to allow more movement along the sides, as per Donadoni’s instructions. We can thus summarize our defeat in a few words: we were not steamrollered, we just lost. However, the bad news for some is that this will not be our last defeat of the season. I clearly do wish this was not the case, but this is what football has taught us, and what we all already know.

And yet, it’s clear that knowing that sometime you lose, sometime you win, does not alleviate some people’s gastric disorders: I am talking about those people hiding in the bushes, waiting for a chance to jump out and start complaining about the same old stories. The discussion regarding Dzemaili is just an example: only the uninformed could not know that moving to Canada at the end of the season was written in his contract, and therefore, what is happening is no surprise. As a matter of fact, Blerim agreed to come to Bologna indeed because the contract also included h8is transfer to Canada after a year – a good opportunity for a player who is turning 31 next week, and an even better opportunity when we consider that it was made by a trustworthy and reliable person, Joey Saputo. Thus, it’s as follows: matches are lost and won, contracts are respected (which is what Diawara should have done, but did not). Today, however, it seems that Bologna’s biggest issue is coherence. For years we let ourselves be lied to, so much as there are still different versions of the Guaraldi-Diamanti story, or of the reasons behind the missed renewal of Viviano’s contract, and now, because of this “tradition”, people are most offended by Dzemaili’s respect for the rules.

On the 17^th of March 2015, Luca Bortolotti wrote these wise words on La Repubblica: “Setting aside the Granarolo project, to instead invest money and effort to improve Casteldebole […]. These are the plans for the Rossoblu structure on which the new administration is working. This will be the right week to attempt to close, after three years, the matter of the Rossoblu centre in Granaloro, only planned in Guaraldi & co.’s minds, without a digger having been ever put in motion.” There we go. Today, two years after this article was written, Bologna has held the inauguration event of a new and stunning area in Casteldebole. Yet another element that, as Saputo highlighted at the inauguration, “is the foundation on which to build the future for Bologna. The first thing I wanted to do when I first arrived, was to bring back glory to Bologna, and this has been an important step towards that direction.”

These are only two of the many pieces of evidence of Saputo’s consistency. The third could be the young team and the Primavera, who is doing really well, also thanks to Paolo Magnani’s work.

To conclude, I want to keep it short, and this question pops into my mind: who is actually scared of Joey Saputo?

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