He forged ahead, returning during the match against Salernitana and training with the group 19 days after the injury to the hamstring of his left thigh, in the face of a clinical examination which had foreseen up to a month’s stoppage.
A small detail that is not a detail: in a remnant of the match, with one of his own ideas, he put Ndoye in front of the goal, managing to do in a few minutes what Odgaard had not managed to do in the entire match up to that point. Not that the Dane hasn’t been useful, far from it, but the quality is different, ditto the ability to interpret Thiago Motta’s role and system: ergo, with an extra week of training in his legs, Joshua Zirkzee is a candidate to return to the starting line-up in attack in Frosinone, a fundamental match for Bologna to continue their race for the Champions League and Juventus’ third place.
A race that presents Bologna with a new opportunity: to attack third place and overtake the Bianconeri, one of the many teams that have turned their radar on the Dutch rossoblù star. It’s not the only one: Milan, Naples, Inter, Manchester United, Newcastle, Arsenal, without forgetting Bayern Munich which boasts a buy-back right of 40 million, as well as a 40 percent on future resale. Net of the price reserved exclusively for the Bavarians, Bologna has much higher prices in mind for Zirkzee: between 60 and 70 million. There will be time for that. First there is a Champions League to conquer: or rather to be secured given that Bologna is now in a hare position and on the run. Among other things, in Casteldebole, while waiting to draw up plans for the future, there is the idea of proposing, in the event of Europa, an adjustment to Zirkzee’s contract to try to retain him: it will not be simple, far from it, also because a lot will depend on the intentions of his entourage and of Bayern Munich, which must define who will be next season’s coach.
But the near future also passes through Bologna and the signal sent by a Zirkzee who has forged ahead is not something to be passed over in silence at Bologna. Even more so because the Dutchman, in addition to being the team’s best scorer together with Orsolini in the league (10 goals in Serie A, but 11 in the season) is also the rossoblù’s away scorer, having scored 8 of his 10 goals in the league away from Dall’Ara: against Inter, Sassuolo, Fiorentina, Salernitana (double), Milan, Lazio and Atalanta respectively. There is no one like him on the journey that is bringing Bologna back to Europe. Ergo, no one is more eager to return to the starting shirt than him: “It’s as if he had never stopped”, said Motta on the eve of the match against Salernitana. But the need to avoid relapses forced the technician to be cautious. Cautions that should be dropped in Frosinone, because to continue the race for the Champions League they also need goals and no one, far from Dall’Ara, is like Joshua Zirkzee, ready to take back Bologna and the ride towards Europe, waiting for the transfer market . But when in doubt, yesterday Joshua relaunched a story on Instagram with a photo of him at the Dall’Ara and many rossoblù hearts to accompany it.
