At the end of Bologna’s 2-0 win over Roma on Sunday, the Dazn reporter Tommaso Turci found a scrunched-up letter by the dugouts. It was addressed to José Mourinho by a fan who had travelled from Madurai, India. The author praised the “Special One”, thanked him for inspiring them to pursue a career in football and requested an opportunity to work as his assistant.
The Bologna manager, Thiago Motta, had also been generous in his praise for Mourinho before kick-off. He played under him at Internazionale, making 40 appearances in the treble-winning team of 2009-10. “Mourinho was and continues to be a fantastic coach,” said Motta. “I don’t believe in luck; he has earned everything he has obtained up till now.”
By full time, though, Motta’s team had moved above Mourinho’s in the Serie A table, up into fourth place. Fortune had nothing to do with it. Bologna controlled the game from first to last, patiently waiting out a Roma side who sat in a familiar low block and finding ways to break through their lines without over-committing or risking vulnerability on the break.
It was not much of a spectacle. The closest either team came to scoring in the opening half-hour was a free-kick from the Roma defender Diego Llorente, who attempted to chip Bologna’s goalkeeper from the centre circle. Andrea Belotti did win a header inside the box for the Giallorossi shortly afterward, but on neither occasion did Federico Ravaglia look likely to let the ball pass.
The hosts scored instead in the 37th minute at the end of a more purposeful manoeuvre. Sam Beukema threaded a pass between three opponents to set Remo Freuler running down the right. He picked out Dan Ndoye, accelerating beyond the full-back. Joshua Zirkzee was calling for the ball in the middle, but Ndoye had spotted Nikola Moro’s late run from midfield and pulled it back to him instead. The Croatian side-footed home from the penalty spot.
Mourinho tried to shake things up by introducing Renato Sanches off the bench at half-time. However, Bologna doubled their lead in the 49th minute, Rasmus Kristensen sliding a Lewis Ferguson cross into his own net. That was that. A quarter of an hour later, Mourinho took a bewildered Sanches back off again.
In some sense, the result was no surprise. Bologna had already shown us what a team they are becoming under Motta, with draws against Inter, Juventus and Napoli – as well as a win over Lazio. Roma, meanwhile, arrived for this game missing several key starters. Romelu Lukaku and Nicola Zalewski were serving suspensions, and Paulo Dybala recovering from a hamstring injury. Tammy Abraham and Chris Smalling are long-term absentees.
Still, this felt like another little landmark in Bologna’s ascent. Their tally of 28 points is the most they have had after 16 games since Serie A started handing out three for a win in 1994. As impressive as those results is the calm control of their performances. From the opening kick-off, they held the ball without letting Roma touch it for almost two minutes.
Ferguson has stood out as one of the team’s best performers. His role has evolved through the season but even now is hard to pin down, something between a No 10 and a box-to-box mezzala. At times it can feel as though there must simply be two of him: one who swaps places with Zirkzee up front and a twin who waits to interrupt attacks at the other end of the pitch.
The Scotsman wore the captain’s armband on Sunday, but this has been a rotating honour, swapped between players in recognition of their performances. It is a deliberate choice by Motta to encourage all his squad to work harder and show leadership. Not by accident have Bologna covered more distance on the pitch than any Serie A team besides Lazio.
Some individuals have stood out. Besides Ferguson, the 22-year-old Zirkzee has caught the eye: Bologna’s top scorer but also an impressively selfless centre-forward who unstitches opponents as much with his off-the-ball runs as he does with his dribbling. Beukema, 25, and Riccardo Calafiori, 21, have formed an impressively consistent pairing in central defence.
Yet the strength of this side really does lie in its collective. Only Inter and Juventus have conceded fewer goals than Bologna in Serie A this season. Motta – who only lets his players know the starting XI on the morning of each game – opted to swap out starting goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski for Ravaglia against Roma: a 24-year-old with four Serie A appearances under his belt, the last of them in 2021.
“He played because we have a group,” explained Motta in matter-of-fact tones, “and within that a healthy competition. Today it was Federico’s time, but we have two great goalkeepers.”
The contrast between his rhetoric and Mourinho’s felt stark. “Without Paulo [Dybala] we don’t have class,” said the Roma manager. “And without Romelu [Lukaku] we don’t have physicality … the players we had on the pitch wanted to give more, but the problem is not a tactical one, it’s a physical one. Bologna had the legs, players with intensity, we don’t have many players with those qualities.”
Genoa 1-1 Juventus, Torino 1-0 Empoli, Napoli 2-1 Cagliari, Lecce 2-1 Frosinone, Lazio 0-2 Inter, Bologna 2-0 Roma, Udinese 2-2 Sassuolo, Fiorentina 1-0 Verona
Notwithstanding those words, Mourinho said he hopes to continue at Roma and extend his contract beyond the end of this season even if it means accepting a project with greater financial restrictions and an emphasis on developing young players. “If I do leave, it will never be because I want to go to another club or have a holiday,” he said. “I want to continue here.”
The supporter who threw him a note on Sunday no doubt hopes the club will oblige him, as do those who have continued to pack out the Stadio Olimpico for home games. Sanches may feel differently. Mourinho offered him a public apology, though not an explanation, at full time.
Bologna’s owner may already be fretting about how long he can hold on to Motta, whose contract is also set to expire in 2024. Joey Saputo travelled from Canada to attend the game on Sunday, hosting the family of Sinisa Mihajlovic. Tributes were paid to the former manager before kick-off, marking the one-year anniversary of his passing.
Saputo will attend a meal for players and coaches on Monday. No doubt he will spend time with Motta there. Perhaps they will talk contracts, or perhaps that will be left for a more formal setting. It might be a moment, for a club that has not played in Europe since the 2002 Intertoto Cup, simply to celebrate being one game from Christmas in a Champions League-qualifying place.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inter Milan | 16 | 32 | 41 |
| 2 | Juventus | 16 | 14 | 37 |
| 3 | AC Milan | 16 | 11 | 32 |
| 4 | Bologna | 16 | 8 | 28 |
| 5 | Napoli | 16 | 9 | 27 |
| 6 | Fiorentina | 16 | 7 | 27 |
| 7 | Roma | 16 | 9 | 25 |
| 8 | Atalanta | 15 | 6 | 23 |
| 9 | Torino | 16 | -2 | 23 |
| 10 | Monza | 16 | -1 | 21 |
| 11 | Lazio | 16 | -2 | 21 |
| 12 | Lecce | 16 | -2 | 20 |
| 13 | Frosinone | 16 | -5 | 19 |
| 14 | Genoa | 16 | -5 | 16 |
| 15 | Sassuolo | 16 | -6 | 16 |
| 16 | Cagliari | 16 | -13 | 13 |
| 17 | Udinese | 16 | -13 | 13 |
| 18 | Empoli | 16 | -18 | 12 |
| 19 | Verona | 16 | -10 | 11 |
| 20 | Salernitana | 15 | -19 | 8 |
