Bologna in the running for the Champions League: decisive matches against Juventus and Milan

How is he, in health, Bologna that in the championship 360 minutes from the goal in theory should run towards a finish line called Champions League? Bad, if you look for answers in the first half. Better, if instead the focus is on the second forty-five minutes.

"In the first half they started strong – he admits Vincenzo Italiano in the press room – but we expected it: they were coming off five defeats and were playing in front of their fans. We, on the other hand, were below par".

But fortunately his Bologna's performance saw a change of pace at half-time. "Much better in the second half - says the coach - when we had a good reaction. We have this virtue of never giving up games, of never giving them away to our opponents. Finishing games on a high means that you're there with your head. Of course we lacked the final spark, the one that would have allowed us to take home the three points. On Castro's header, at the end, Orsolini had a ball on his head that could have given us the victory...".

Perhaps it would have been an excessive award for how the two teams on the field divided merits and demerits. It remains a draw not to be despised, because in football the old rule applies: when you can't win it's important not to lose.

"Let's move up the rankings - he adds - and stay close to the top. It's important not to give up on anything, because I'm convinced that from now until the end, those who make fewer mistakes will get the most satisfaction."

Juventus, Milan, Fiorentina and Genoa: here are the opponents to face in sequence in the championship. And in between there is the final of Coppa Italia with Milan on May 14th at the Olimpico.

"We are racing on two fronts and this will allow us to never pull the plug – observes Italiano –. In the championship we made a great run to find ourselves with the top teams and we want to stay in this group. We have four very difficult matches ahead of us in which we will have to bring out all our qualities. The first, the one with Juve, is a play-off...".

All eyes are on the face-to-face match on May 4th at the Dall'Ara, a match of truth that Bologna will face without Ndoye and with Castro, as we saw yesterday, at half-strength.

"If Santiago is not at one hundred percent and cannot perform, I prefer to throw him into the fray in the final minutes," he observes. "He still has pain in his foot, but I am convinced that the pain could disappear at any moment. Ndoye? An injury that really makes me angry: he had put him on the sidelines to act as a five-on-five layoff, a ball came to him and he felt his thigh sting. But I am convinced that Dan will only need two weeks to heal." That is, to step onto the pitch of the Olimpico with Milan.

The rest is the Dantesque circle of the match seen from the stands. "I hope it never happens again because from up there it is really difficult to experience a match", admits Italiano. "But the expulsion is my responsibility: in the future I will try to be more careful".