Like in fairy tales, Vasco Rossi sang. And this is what comes to mind when looking at what Bologna is doing in the championship and, above all, how they are doing it. The victory in Rome against the main contender in fourth place which gives the right to the Champions League (this year fifth will also be good) is a sporting achievement but even more so is the way in which it arrived, with Thiago Motta’s usual total and light football.
Something that wasn’t there before
Often when you see the rossoblù you have the feeling of seeing something that wasn’t there before, a new way of playing and, without going too far into risky comparisons, the team plays as some great teams played that in Europe over the last half century have marked the difference between before and after. Let’s take it for granted that we agree that “football is the most important of the least important things”, because if we thought that football was just a sporting affair we wouldn’t be writing this piece. What is happening to the rossoblù is something that is also happening to the city and to the people of Bologna, to grandparents, fathers and sons because there is nothing that binds generations together more than the miracle of the ball. Of course, qualification for the Champions League will bring Bologna to the screens of half of Europe, many more thousands of people will take a flight to get to Marconi.
The generations that bond
And the Champions League will bring a lot of money to Bologna and the city. But at this moment, with five games to go, and with the concrete possibility of qualifying for the Champions League in hand, that’s not what interests us most. We are interested in that thing that we tried to explain before, the generations that bond, the memories of those who saw the great Bologna and now have white hair, the tears of the fathers who saw the team play against Leffe and now find that diamond of Riccardo Calafiori perpetually in the opponent’s area. We are interested in talking about that generation of kids aged between 8 and 16 who have literally gone crazy and who have enjoyed this year like those gifts that only youth brings with it. They will keep the images of this season forever, like the good wine of an excellent year, and they will have in their eyes “the Bologna shirt seven days a week” sung in another season by Luca Carboni.
The kids of the year 2000
In 1966 Time coined the expression Swinging London to describe the dolce vita of those years between pop music, photography, cinema and fashion. Here we are very far from Swinging London because it is difficult to make ends meet and the people of Bologna take it out on construction sites, on the tram and on 30 km/h trains. But if there is anyone who literally swings (swinging means swinging) with joy for Bologna it is the kids of the 2000s, those who started with Joshua Zirkzee and not from Serie C, exchange Whatsapps and go to bed dreaming of Bologna. The magic is proportional to the leap in results and ambitions, the team has changed paradigm, has connected dots creating figures that were unthinkable only last year, it has dug into the terrain of dreams and this is exactly what happens in fairy tales: the unthinkable that becomes everyday . At least they, the kids of the 2000s, are Swinging Bologna, the generation to come. They are living their Village Saturday “as a day full of happiness, a clear and bright day”. Others can swing along with them.
Tags: Swinging Bologna successes Mottas men entire city dream
