Thiago Motta – They used to laugh at his ideas and read his statements with amazement, now they admire him! Tiago Motta and his Bologna are the most pleasant surprise of Serie A and it is difficult to condemn the Italian giants for “copying” from Bologna and in trying to “steal” a new coach because the football public has been talking superlatively about the 41-year-old Italian expert and what he is doing with the team from Emilio Romagna for months.Â
That summer, Bologna was without five players who had 30 or more matches in Serie A last season, including the first assistant Musa Barrow, and the team’s second scorer Marko Arnautovic, left-back Andrea Cambiasso returned to Juventus after the end of his loan, his colleague on the opposite side Stefan Pos missed four games due to a problem with the injury, first stopper Jhon Lucumi one more due to a thigh injury, while his partner Adama Soumaoro has not been on the field since May last year. However, instead of bemoaning his fate and that of his players, Motta demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt and completely transform the team. Until his arrival, Bologna’s defense was synonymous with instability. Since the Italian expert arrived in Emilia Romagna, considering that in the current season, Bologna only capitulated 27 times, only Inter conceded fewer goals in the Serie A. Despite the handicap in the defensive line, Stadio Renato Dall’Ara has become the best-kept secret of Serie A, since in the last year and a half (since Motta’s arrival), Bologna has kept a clean sheet in most matches at home in the Italian championship.
Born in Brazil, raised in Catalonia attending La Masia, and “adopted” by the Italians for whose national team he later played, Thiago Motta worked with a large number of successful coaches throughout his playing career, such as Frank Rijkaard, Louis van Gaal, Carlo Ancelotti, Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte, and as a refined defensive midfielder with whose every move and movement football intelligence was scattered on the field, somehow it was always to be expected that after he hangs up his football boots, he will sit on the coach’s bench.
After only ten games in his first job in senior football, the owner of Genoa, Enrico Preziosi, handed him his resignation – the same Preziosi who “beheaded” 26 coaches in 18 years at the club – his ideas were again discussed in a mocking tone. He waited more than half a year for his next job. In July 2021, he took over Spezia, and even though the team from Liguria brought in 23 players that summer, Motta managed to arrange the dice in a short period, and despite everything, he made a small miracle by keeping Spezia in the elite rank, but the collaboration, although originally scheduled for three seasons, was terminated after only 12 months.
Barely a month has passed since he arrived in the university town, and the “student” has not passed a single exam. Four games and only one point, against Sampdoria, which will finish at the bottom at the end of the season. Bologna achieved five victories in six games in all competitions before the World Cup in Qatar and after returning from a one-and-a-half-month break, they never looked back. Due to circumstances (since Juventus was punished by not playing in Europe), the season ended in ninth position, two points behind Fiorentina, who finished in the Conference League, although they played a good part of the second half of the season without the injured Marko Arnautovic. And when, at the end of the season, he saw in which direction Motta could lead the club, the president Saputo put his hand in his pocket. The Canadian spent 45,000,000 euros on reinforcements and he hardly regretted that decision, because Motta almost did not miss on the market. The Italian not only expanded the bench but patched the holes created by the departures. Beukema himself made the absences of Lucumi and Soumaoro not felt, then Riccardo Calafiori joined him in the heart of the defense, normally left back by vocation, and exceeded all expectations, Victor Christiansen made Cambiaso be forgotten, Dan Ndoye usual nailed it on the wing, either left or right, while Remo Freuler seemed to disguise himself as Nick Dominguez, who “took” his place in Nottingham Forest. And Joshua Zirkzee who came from Anderlecht is among the best talents currently in Europe.
Thiago Motta is very close to qualifying for the Champions League with his Bologna, and it’s something that nobody expected from him, not even Bologna’s fans who used to boo him at the beginning of the season before everyone in Italy and Europe understood what kind of genius is Motta.
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