Let’s talk about this. «Motta almost makes Guardiola’s movements scholastic: he is illegible on the pitch». He said it Ivan Juric, not a fan at the bar. The Turin coach was his teammate at Genoa. The two are very close, Juric is one of the best coaches in Serie A. «Thiago is revolutionizing football, Bologna is doing different and new things. He’s a genius, a beautiful coach, a great team.” Maybe Juric is wrong. And maybe he’s wrong too Arrigo Sacchi who never had it. «I would like to see one of his workouts, I would like to study it». At the end of the 1980s, the former national coach transported football into the modern era, a revolutionary. Other? Yes please. Fabio Capello: «He’s one of my favourites, he makes everyone do their best. He has the right character, he is a former midfielder. All the great coaches are: Guardiola, Conte, Xabi Alonso, Ancelotti, Arteta, Allegri, Xavi.”
Leicester-style fairytale
Motta is actually a pain in the ass. He said it about himself and Bologna: «We are the pain in the ass of Serie A». Thiago is never rude. He doesn’t look like a disheveled genius. He only turns into José Mourinho when he argues with the referees. He’s a maniac. He locks himself in the technical center from morning to night and studies. Videos, matches, opponents, solutions. He directs the training and gets back to planning new strategies, dramatic moves like Ravaglia and Odgaard starting in Naples. “But you make me seem boring, come on, I’m not.” He’s right, there is nothing more beautiful than his Bologna. A Leicester-style fairy tale. Rainieri’s former team won the Premier League in 2016 with unknown players and Sir Claudio, sacked a few months earlier by Greece after sensationally losing at home to the Faroe Islands.
The beginnings and the arrival in the city
Everyone knew who Thiago Motta was, but they didn’t believe he was a football genius. An extra-luxury footballer’s pedigree: former “treble achiever” for Mourinho’s Inter in 2010 and former midfielder for the Azzurri in the 2012 European Championship final, the one lost 4-0 against Spain. Thiago had a bad start as a coach. A few months at Genoa and then sacked by president Enrico Preziosi. “In 2019 I caught him too quickly in a difficult situation and was forced to kick him out, but I was completely convinced that he would make a career.” The following year a miraculous salvation was achieved in La Spezia, with the club unable to make the transfer market due to the blockade imposed by FIFA. A thousand times on the verge of dismissal, Thiago always saved himself at the last minute. He leaves at the end of the season. The following year, without his guidance, Spezia was relegated, while he arrives at Bologna in the worst of situations, in place of Mihajlovic, ill for some time. It doesn’t look good. One point in four games, the people boo and don’t understand a coach who is too far ahead, a Steve Jobs of football. He dreams of a scheme he has never heard of: the 2-7-2. It seems like a line from the film with Lino Banfi The Coach in the Balloon, in which Oronzo Canà introduced the 5-5-5 and his “B Zone”.
«El Profe»
It’s just another perspective, the new way of seeing the field. Thiago shows the application of a theorem considered impossible. The new way of football, described so well in his degree thesis at the Coverciano coaching course, entitled «The value of the ball – The tool of the trade in the heart of the game». Score 108/110. In Motta’s world, the recreational ball gradually became “a tool for team play, an expression of a more complex form of collective play” and above all it was “the most precious asset”: losing it, in any game situation, was “a sort of football crime”. Theory and practice. Bologna is the second team for possession in Serie A. In short, not an exercise in style. «He has valid solutions, he alternates them, and continually searches for the game, without being stumpy when turning the ball around», underlines Giovanni Galeone, another pioneer of the area. For the team, Motta is El Profe, as defender Lucumi calls him. The rossoblù president Joey Saputo defined it as “strange”. In the city for everyone is SanThiago. Frugal, away from the lights, he strolls under the arcades like any other tourist. He stops for a selfie with Cesare Cremonini. He embraces devotees, fans, acquaintances, journalists, he doesn’t trust anyone. He melts when at night, returning from away games, he finds the cheering crowd waiting for him and the team bus in Casteldebole. His wife Angela Lee stays in Portugal with their three daughters. The first fan is her. «A lot of work, dedication and study, a lot of physical and mental commitment: seeing you grow is wonderful, I hope you conquer the world», she dedicates it to her husband.
His future
Fairy tales are fairy tales only if “in the end everyone lived happily ever after”. However, Bologna in the Champions League is not the last page of history, it is the most beautiful, yes. It had never happened before, perhaps it will happen again, never again in such an unexpected and thunderous way. It should be the grand finale, bring down the curtain and applause, everyone go home, there is no better epilogue. And instead there is one last act to live: Thiago’s future. Is he going or staying? Juve, Bologna, the Premier League. Everyone wants it, no one gets it. The best coach has been without a contract since June 30th. Clues spread by the Profe like a smoke screen. Hopes for the rossoblù: «At the end of the season I will talk to the club, I’m happy here». Drama for the rossoblù: «My future is not important, let’s enjoy the moment». Everything and the opposite. It’s not about money or big clubs. Juve courted him, Milan tried, Bologna is a great love story. The future is only in the hands of Mago Thiago, who has become the man of the year, of the decade, of the future of football. Go or stay, either way it will be a success. For him for sure.
