Bologna-Juve: the Dall'Ara crowd can make the difference, says Maifredi

Bologna-Juve? "The Dall'Ara crowd can win it." Italian? "Fantastic season, but woe betide him if he thought of leaving in June." Motta's flop at Juve? "Different story from mine, but he was left alone."

Gigi Maifredi has just cut the ribbon of his 78th birthday but it is an injustice to him to remember his birth date. The intuitions (and jabs) always flow in a continuous stream in a chat with the man who seems only a little more gray than the 'White Feather' who almost forty years ago seduced an entire city with his unrepeatable champagne kick.

Maifredi, but does repeatability exist in football?

"The hardest thing is repeating yourself after a great year. I'm curious to know if in July there was anyone who could imagine that the person who took over from Motta after a super season would not only repeat the successes of his predecessor but would even do better. And instead...".

Even Vincenzo's football tastes like champagne.

"Seeing his Bologna play is a beautiful sight. Well done Sartori, who has also taken the right players this year. And very well done Italiano for assembling a Bologna that is solid, plays good football and always goes a thousand miles an hour".

Not really in Udine.

"Okay, I've seen him play better games: but it's normal to not always be at the top. Bologna's season, however it ends, is fantastic."

The outcome of the Coppa Italia final against Milan will also weigh on the judgment.

"Milan have players who, if they remember that they are the champions that they are, can win the match at any moment. Technically they are the favourites but in a one-off match anything can happen."

Bologna hoped to challenge Motta on Sunday and instead Tudor arrives. Speaking of failures in black and white: are there similarities between Thiago's fall and yours in 1990-91?

"None. I was called to Juve to make a revolution, Motta only had to bring his ideas to a group that already had important technical values. He had thirty players, I had fourteen. And the strongest of the fourteen was one who would never have wanted to wear the Juve shirt".

He is referring to Baggio.

"Yes: in Florence they had instilled in him a hatred for Juve. With me, however, he was exceptional, I can only speak well of him. A phenomenon who in his career was the victim of the modifiers, first and foremost Sacchi: wanting to play 4-4-2 with Baggio does not exist".

Let's go back to Thiago in black and white.

"He thought he was copying and pasting Bologna. But in Bologna he had three coaches on the field: Freuler, Ferguson and Aebischer. In Turin, however, he was left alone: ​​in front of the microphones he repeated that he had Giuntoli's support but in practice no one helped him. And instead the coach would always need a technical advisor".

Who did she have in Turin?

"Governato, with whom I had already worked in Bologna. But Nello was a good guy: I would have needed someone tougher to deal with."

Why did Italian get under the skin of the Bolognese?

"Because he is a simple person: but behind this simplicity there is a lot of football wisdom. I would like to go to Casteldebole one day to meet him".

Italian is also liked by people who like it.

"But it's not a good idea for him to go and risk getting burned: the Thiago story teaches us that. He has to stay in Bologna for two or three years and then if he continues to do very well he can go wherever he wants."

Bologna-Juve is worth a good chunk of the Champions League.

"On Sunday the Dall'Ara crowd is also playing. I see an involvement, a participation, an affection that is truly the twelfth man on the field". In the meantime, 'his' Ospitaletto has been promoted to C, where it had been missing for 27 years. In the summer of 1987, everything started from there.

"And to think that promotion to C1 Corioni hadn't even planned. The 'Pres' was coming off two seasons in which he had spent a lot of money in vain to move up a division, so he thought of taking a local coach and playing it safe. In the summer he sold almost everyone except Gilardi and I was lucky enough to find the various Cusin, De Marchi and Monza. When the following summer I brought them all with me to Bologna in Ospitaletto I made not only Corioni rich but also all his partners. They should name a street after me".