We publish the article written on 17 July 2022 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Intertoto match between Bologna and Fulham.
The atmosphere of London
We arrived at London early in the morning on August 27th twenty years ago, on a plane full of journalists, sponsors and friends of friends, as was customary in the days of the presidency of Giuseppe Gazzoni, never stingy when it came to organizing European away games. Spoiler: this is the rossoblù’s last appearance in a European cup, even if at the time, walking around the City, if someone had prophesied it no one would have believed them. Bologna was there almost by chance: in the last round of the championship, on 5 May 2002, with a victory Brescia could have qualified for the Champions League.
The three goals
Instead, everything happened: the rossoblù scored three goals, Lazio, their direct competitor, instead of dodging, beat Inter, sewing the scudetto onto Juventus’ chest. In an amen, the Bologna finished from fourth to seventh place, out of the Champions League, out of the UEFA and even in the Intertoto. At that point the summer was dotted with “real” matches, instead of the traditional friendlies: the Bate Borisovchampion of Belarus who a few years later we will even see in the Champions League, the Teplicethe team where he grew up Edin Dzeko, were the path that led to the double-round final against Fulham. It began on July 20th twenty years ago at the Dall’Ara, Julio Cruz, Beppe Signori, Gianluca Pagliuca, the future world champion Cristian Zaccardo on the field, thirteen thousand spectators in the stands.
The path
An easy path, which Bologna had already traveled in 1998 when they won the tournament, qualifying for the UEFA cup. But this time in the last act there was a Premier League team that was decidedly more competitive than the Ruch Chorzow deleted by Carlo Mazzone four years earlier. Waiting for us in London is the Mohammed-Al Fayed’s Fulhamthe king of Harrod’s department storeDodi’s father, who died in the tragic Alma accident on 31 August 1997 together with his partner Diana Spencer. The game was played at the much-hated, for Juventus fans, Loftus Road, home of rivals Queens Park Rangers: Craven Cottage was in fact supposed to open the renovation site, which instead never took place during that season. However, not even Loftus Road was a modern facility: narrow queues, crowded spectators, structures bordering on dilapidation, but still better than the home stadium, which according to theUEFA it was unusable for international competitions. Some unexploded talents of European football on the pitch: Steed Malbranquenever became what he could become, Luis Boa Morte, same as above, in goal Edwin Van der Sar at the end of his career. And then this Juinichi Inamoto, fresh from two goals in the home World Cup – that of Byron Moreno – and sent onto the pitch, in the first leg at the Dall’Ara, almost out of desperation by coach Jean Tiganà. The Japanese player, who at 42 years old is still playing in the Japanese C series, had arrived fromArsenal and scored four goals in the cups: all against Bologna. One in the first leg, in fact, to close the match at 2-2, and three in the return, where it seemed like Maradonatook the ball home and shattered Bologna’s dreams.
The match
It was a prophetic match, seen again today. The Fulham crashed the rossoblù, liquefied by the hat-trick of Inamoto and the pace of the opponents. Imagining that that team could continue to play a championship on the “left side of the table”, as we would say today, was an illusion. The golden age was over, it ended there, a Loftus Rdin the final of theIntertoto 2002, the last European match played by Bologna. Cooked by a grueling tournament that began in July, the team struggled like a beast against the English and then during the championship, where they never found the rhythm that had characterized the best years of the era. Gazzonithose of UlivieriOf Mazzone and also the one from the previous year with Francesco Guidolin. The 2002-2003 season was a disaster especially in its outline, it was that of the infamous “city of m…” uttered by a Guidolin exhausted by criticism, often specious, and by the progressive decline of the company: the veterans were increasingly older and the best had to end up on the market to help the now bloodless coffers. These were crucial years for European football. Football was becoming a business and Bologna was unable to get on that train, embarking as it was on a luscious journey towards oblivion. The teams of Premier Leagueaffordable at the time, were going through the metamorphosis into money machines, the A series was instead destined for an unsuspected twilight.
The epilogue
A year after that match, on 27 August 2003, a few days before the start of the championship, Guidolin he got off the red and blue carousel, on which he got back on Mazzone. In June 2005 came the relegation to Serie B, then repeated in 2014 at the end of a morally devastating decade for city football. Of course, after the hat-trick of Inamoto There were Calciopoli and other events, but that evening of London exposed the weaknesses of Bolognaa company still organized and managed like those ofancien régimewhile football was changing radically.
