Venice has no shortage of eye-catching door-knockers, heavy bronze casts of 16th-century lions and sea monsters adorning entrances of palaces throughout the lagoon city. Still, there is always room for another. Riccardo Orsolini could not hang around quite so long, but his goal for Bologna away to Venezia on Saturday will linger in the memories of supporters.
The second half had barely started when Nicolò Cambiaghi cut back from the left flank and crossed right-footed to the far post. Orsolini met his delivery with an exquisite side-footed volley across the goalkeeper and into the corner of the net.
He celebrated by running to the TV camera behind the goal and rapping a fist three times on the lens. A reprise of the celebration he used after scoring Bologna’s second goal in a 5-0 demolition of Lazio just before the international break.
Journalists had speculated back then that Orsolini was sending a message to the Italy manager Luciano Spalletti, knocking to enquire why he had been overlooked for a call-up once again. The player insisted: “My celebration wasn’t aimed at anyone.” Asked why he repeated it on Saturday, he said: “Now it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ll keep celebrating like this as long as I can.”
It is reasonable to ask why Orsolini was not included for Italy’s Nations League quarter-final against Germany. Even before his goal against Venezia, he had reached double figures for the third season running while playing off the right wing. Saturday’s strike means he has now scored 32 times in Serie A over the past three years – more than any other Italian player.
The simple answer is that he does not fit neatly into Spalletti’s tactical plans. Italy have shifted away from the 4-3-3 they used at Euro 2024 to a 3-5-2. Orsolini, who plays high on the right in Bologna’s 4-2-3-1, does not have an obvious home in such a formation.
One might argue that he still deserves a try, in this era when the concept of rigid positions is being abandoned in favour of “relational football” which asks players to interpret roles fluidly and respond to teammates’ movements through a game. Might he not have been a more effective second striker than Daniel Maldini, who started away to Germany despite scoring only three goals this season?
Orsolini himself, though, has not given any public indication that he is even upset. Asked what he needed to do to convince Spalletti during an interview with the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino last week, Orsolini replied: “I don’t need to convince anyone. I just carry on doing my thing.”
He believes he is playing the best football of his career, and that part of the credit must go to Bologna’s manager, Vincenzo Italiano – “In my opinion, the best manager in Italy right now.”
Hired to replace Thiago Motta in the summer, it seemed to many – Orsolini included – that Italiano was picking up a poisoned chalice. His predecessor had just steered the club into the Champions League for the first time since it became the Champions League. They played in the old European Cup once, after winning Serie A in 1963-64.
After qualifying this time, they had sold two of their best players – Joshua Zirkzee and Riccardo Calafiori, to Manchester United and Arsenal respectively. Another, Lewis Ferguson, would miss the start of this season as he continued to recover from a cruciate ligament injury. In total, Bologna brought in more than €100m in transfer fees and spent only half as much on intended replacements.
“I told [Italiano] right away: ‘Boss, you were very brave to come here,’” recalled Orsolini. “Who would come to us at that moment? He could only do worse. And yet he has shocked everyone. I am very happy. More for him than for me.”
Bologna, who finished fifth under Motta, are now fourth in the table with eight games to play. The start of this season was every bit as challenging as Orsolini had anticipated. Italiano won only one of his first 11 games in charge between Serie A and the Champions League.
A daunting draw for the latter competition – with visits to Liverpool and Aston Villa before the end of October – did not help. But even as Bologna’s domestic form improved, the greater intensity of those European nights proved too much for them. Home defeats by Monaco and Lille effectively ended any hopes of progress past the group stage; they finished 28th of 36 with only one victory from eight games
Italiano, though, did not let such setbacks derail him. He had chosen evolution, not revolution, keeping a similar formation to the one used by Motta but gradually shifting the emphasis. Bologna defend higher up the pitch than they did last season and are more direct with their passing.
Less visible to people outside the changing room has been the shift in communication and man-management approach. Orsolini said Italiano’s bluntness reminded him of Sinisa Mihajlovic, who helped the club consolidate in mid-table for the period before Motta’s appointment.
“He’s a pure one, like me, he does not hide any emotions from you,” said Orsolini. “If he wants to curse you out he curses you out … Sinisa was like this, he’d tell us all to go to hell then five minutes later he was hugging us. If you’re not a false person, I will give you everything. After a week, I said to my teammates: ‘Lads, I would throw myself in a fire for this guy.’”
Will that buy-in be enough to carry Bologna to another glorious conclusion? Saturday’s win was their fifth in a row in Serie A, and they have lost only once in all competitions so far this calendar year, reaching the Coppa Italia semi-final as well.
Orsolini is not the only one thriving. His fellow winger, Dan Ndoye, has scored seven league goals, while 20-year-old Santiago Castro has made the No 9 spot his own ahead of last summer’s highest-priced signing Thijs Dallinga. Jens Odgaard might be the greatest revelation of all, reinvented by Italiano from an underproducing striker into an atypical, brute force No 10.
Most progress has been made simply by working with players who were already here. Of the summer arrivals, perhaps only the left-back Juan Miranda – signed on a free transfer after he left Real Betis – has made himself integral to the team.
Defending a Champions League spot will be challenging. Bologna’s next three league games are against Napoli, Atalanta and Inter. Even after that, they still have fixtures against Juventus, Milan and Fiorentina left to go.
Cagliari 3-0 Monza, Como 1-1 Empoli, Fiorentina 1-0 Atalanta, Inter 2-1 Udinese, Juventus 1-0 Genoa, Lecce 0-1 Roma, Napoli 2-1 Milan, Venezia 0-1 Bologna
Monday Verona v Parma (5.45pm BST), Lazio v Torino (7.45pm BST)
The race for a top four spot looks likely to go to the wire. Juventus appeared more cohesive this weekend in their first game since firing Motta and replacing him with Igor Tudor. Roma, who ended the weekend three points behind them, are experiencing an extraordinary renaissance under Claudio Ranieri, and have won seven Serie A games in a row.
As greatly as Bologna desire to play in Europe’s top club competition again, Orsolini has said that the opportunity to win the Coppa Italia would excite him even more, as a player who hasn’t lifted a team trophy since “the parish church tournament in Ascoli when I was 12 years old”.
Bologna are away at Empoli on Tuesday in the first leg of their semi-final. Italiano’s team have barely a moment to reflect on their latest success, before they go knocking on more doors.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inter Milan | 30 | 39 | 67 |
| 2 | Napoli | 30 | 23 | 64 |
| 3 | Atalanta | 30 | 34 | 58 |
| 4 | Bologna | 30 | 16 | 56 |
| 5 | Juventus | 30 | 18 | 55 |
| 6 | Roma | 30 | 15 | 52 |
| 7 | Fiorentina | 30 | 17 | 51 |
| 8 | Lazio | 29 | 9 | 51 |
| 9 | AC Milan | 30 | 10 | 47 |
| 10 | Udinese | 30 | -5 | 40 |
| 11 | Torino | 29 | 0 | 38 |
| 12 | Genoa | 30 | -10 | 35 |
| 13 | Como | 30 | -11 | 30 |
| 14 | Verona | 29 | -29 | 29 |
| 15 | Cagliari | 30 | -13 | 29 |
| 16 | Lecce | 30 | -28 | 25 |
| 17 | Parma | 29 | -14 | 25 |
| 18 | Empoli | 30 | -23 | 23 |
| 19 | Venezia | 30 | -20 | 20 |
| 20 | Monza | 30 | -28 | 15 |
