Who knows if Murat Yakin, prophet of Switzerland who mercilessly executed the Azzurri, will have sent a message of thanks to Casteldebole in these hours, addressed to the rossoblù managers but above all to mister Thiago Motta, who gave him three polished and perfectly trained footballers fluid football which also inspires the Swiss national team.
It is difficult to establish who had the greatest impact on the afternoon in Berlin, between Remo Freuler, Michel Aebischer and Dan Ndoye: when in doubt, they are three pillars of Bologna.
It’s easy to predict that, once Spalletti’s Italy has left the scene amid boos, the people of Bologna will be cheering on Switzerland on Saturday, who are expected in the quarterfinals by England. After all, how can you not love three guys who seem to have simply transferred to the national team the codified plays that led Bologna to qualify for the Champions League?
Freuler scored the 1-0 goal on Saturday, crowning an action in which his teammates made 31 consecutive passes. In the 3-1 win at the Olimpico, at home to Roma, Thiago’s Bologna had even done better, with 35 consecutive touches before Zirkzee’s goal. Assonances. Like the inexhaustible and tactically enlightened run of Aebischer, who in the national team plays the same roles that he has played this year in the red and blues: balancer, man-everywhere, geometer capable of occupying the spaces useful for receiving the offload from his teammates and from which to serve, with Euclidean precision, scoring opportunities to them. The assist for the 2-0 by Vargas is a billiard shot of millimetric sharpness: not the first, however, of Aebischer’s European Championship, who had already scored a goal and an assist in the 3-0 with Hungary. Identical loot for the other rossoblù Freuler: a goal against Italy and two precious assists against Hungary and Germany.
And who served the ball to the rossoblù Remo in the match that ended 1-1 with the home team, which effectively brought Switzerland to the attention of the European Championship? Needless to say, Ndoye was also on the rise on Saturday in the 2-0 win over Italy, with his constant targeting of the man that sent the Azzurri department into a tailspin.
What is the value of Switzerland’s red and blue gold if we move from technical evaluations to economic ones?
A summer ago, Freuler, included in the operation with Nottingham Forest that brought Nico Dominguez to the English Premier, was purchased on loan with an obligation to buy for a sum of just over two million euros.
That obligation has already been exercised by Bologna and no one will ever be able to thank Giovanni Sartori enough, the architect of the operation.
Sartori, and with him di Vaio, have been on Basel’s heels for two long months to get Ndoye’s yes.
In the end the yes came, in exchange for around ten million: trifles in the face of a value that has now tripled. Aebischer, on the other hand, was a happy intuition by Bigon.
Paid four million, at 27 years old he too is worth at least triple that today.
And now he’s daydreaming about the European Championship semi-final.
