Bologna F.C. 1909

Bologna

Full name	Bologna Football Club 1909 SpA
Nickname(s)	Rossoblu (Red-Blues); Felsinei
Founded	1909
Ground	Stadio Renato Dall'Ara, Bologna, Italy (Capacity: 38,000)
Chairman	Francesca Menarini[1]
Manager	Franco Colomba
League	Serie A
2008–09	Serie A, 17th
Home colours Away colours Third colours

Bologna Football Club 1909 is an Italian football club based in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna. They were formed in 1909 and continue on today. The club are nicknamed the rossoblù because of the red and blue striped shirts they wear.

During its history the club has won the Italian League Championship seven times. They are the sixth most successful team in the league ever. Bologna F.C. was promoted to Serie A for the 2008-09 season, having last played in the top division in 2004-05.

History

Bologna Football Club's formation was orchestrated by Emilio Arnstein, an Austrian who became interested in football at university in Vienna and Praga. He and his brother had previously founded another football club Black Star F.C. in Austria.

The club was founded on 3 October 1909, in the Northern Italian city of Bologna. Upon its formation, Carlo Sandoni was the clubs sponsor and General manager, Swissman Louis Rauch became president, nobleman Guido Della Valle was the vice-president, Enrico Penaglia secretary, Sergio Lampronti cashier, while Emilio Arnstein and Leone Vincenzi were appointed councilmen. They are thought to have adopted their red and blue stripes from Crystal Palace F.C.

On 20 March 1910 Bologna played their first ever game, it was against Virtus (who wore white shirts), Bologna outclassed their opponents winning 9-1. The first football squad featured; Koch, Chiara, Pessarelli, Bragaglia, Guido Della Valle, Nanni, Donati, Rauch, Bernabeu, Mezzano and Gradi.

Their formative season was spent in the regional league under Arrigo Gradi as captain, Bologna won their league gaining promotion to a league named Group Veneto-Emiliano. They spent four seasons in this league, never finishing lower than fifth. Bologna were entered into the Northern League before all football leagues were postponed for World War I.

Champions: 1920s and 1930s

After the first war, Bologna began to become more successful; first reaching the semi-finals of the Northern Italian competition in 1919-20, they went one better the following season by reaching the Northern League finals; going out 2-1 to Pro Vercelli. They would equal this again in 1923-24, coming runner up to (eventual National champions) Genoa.

Bologna squad from the 1912 season.

Bologna became Northern and National League champions for the first time during 1924-25, beating Genoa CFC after five infinite final matches to take the championship. The finals against the Ligurian giants were characterized by heavy crowd troubles. A few seasons later Bologna became champions of Italy for the second time in 1928-29 giving them a foothold in Italian football, building up a legacy, this was the last time the league was competed in the old system, Serie A was instated the following year.

The Scudetto was won by Bologna four more times before World War II, these were achieved in; 1935-36, 1936-37, 1938-39 and 1940-41.

Post-World War II

After World War II, the club was less successful. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the club generally floated between 4th, 5th and 6th position in the league, until they took the league title back in 1963-64. To date this remains their last Serie A championship, bringing the club's total to seven.

It was not all doom and gloom for the club however, in the 1970s they won the Italian Cup twice, the second of which was competed against Palermo, the game was tense and finished 1-1 beforing going to a penalty shootout, Bologna won the shootout 4-3.

Climbing Down and back up the Leagues

Beginning in the 1981-82 season the club began to slide, first they were relegated from Serie A after battling it out for survival with Cagliari and Genoa. They were relegated twice in succession and slid into Serie C1. They won their way out of C1 the next year, and returned to Serie A for the 1988-89 season after four years of fighting it out in Serie B.

They did not remain long, however, being relegated in 1991 and returning to Serie C1 in 1993. The club returned to Serie A for 1996, two years later Bologna tastes a slice of success on the European stage; winning the UEFA Intertoto Cup and playing in the UEFA Cup. The club remained in Serie A until the 2004/05 campaign, losing to Parma in the playoffs.

Recent times

Despite losing some key players, Bologna expected to be challenging strongly for promotion from Serie B in the 2005-06 campaign. However, despite its ambition, Bologna had a poor start to the season, causing the sacking of experienced coach Renzo Ulivieri, replaced by former Internazionale F.C. defender Andrea Mandorlini.

During this time, the team was sold by Giuseppe Gazzoni Frascara to Alfredo Cazzola, a local entrepreneur. However, Mandorlini was not either able to bring Bologna up the Serie B table, and was fired on March 5, 2006; Ulivieri was then appointed back as team coach, after having been sacked a few months before. Bologna ended the 2005-2006 Serie B campaign in eighth place. In the 2006-2007 season, Bologna ended with the seventh place: the season has been however characterized by several clashes between chairman Cazzola and head coach Ulivieri, who was ultimately fired on April 14, 2007 and replaced by caretaker and former assistant coach Luca Cecconi. For the 2007-2008 season, Bologna was led by Daniele Arrigoni, who helped the Rossoblu achieve automatic promotion back to the top flight after finishing second in Serie B.

During the summer, a club takeover was agreed between Cazzola and a United States-based consortium; this was however cancelled in the end, following disagreements between the parties, and the club was successively sold to a local group led by new chairman Francesca Menarini, who thus became the second female chairman in the whole Serie A. Arrigoni was confirmed as head coach by the new group, and the start appeared to be particularly impressive, with a surprising 2–1 win at San Siro against AC Milan thanks to a winning goal scored by Serie A novice Francesco Valiani. However, the next weeks saw Bologna struggling in the league, with eight losses in nine matches. A disappointing 5–1 loss to Cagliari ultimately led the club management to sack Daniele Arrigoni on November 3, 2008 and appoint Siniša Mihajlović as new rossoblu boss.^[2]

On April 14, 2009, Giuseppe Papadopulo was appointed as the new manager, and successfully managed to raise the team spirit avoiding relegation to Serie B only in the last match of the season. In the 2009-10 season, Bologna F.C. will play in Serie A for the 75th time.

Current squad

As of 2009-10-29 ^[3][4]

No. Position Player 1 GK Emiliano Viviano 3 DF Rafael (on loan from Atlético Paranaense) 4 MF Stephen Appiah 5 MF Massimo Mutarelli 6 DF Miguel Britos 7 MF Francesco Valiani 8 MF Nicola Mingazzini 9 FW Marco Di Vaio (Captain) 10 MF Davide Bombardini 11 MF Luca Vigiani 13 DF Daniele Portanova 14 MF Roberto Guana (on loan from Palermo) 15 GK Roberto Colombo 18 DF Vangelis Moras 19 MF Giacomo Tedesco

No. Position Player 21 DF Cristian Zenoni 22 FW Pablo Daniel Osvaldo 23 DF Salvatore Lanna 25 FW Marcelo Zalayeta (on loan from Napoli) 26 MF Gaby Mudingayi 28 GK Filippo Spitoni 32 MF Federico Casarini 33 GK Giacomo Venturi 50 DF Alessandro Bassoli 51 MF Jacopo Mantovani 84 DF Andrea Raggi (on loan from Palermo) 85 FW Adaílton 90 MF Riccardo Pasi

Presidential history

Bologna have had numerous presidents over the course of their history, some of which have been the owners of the club, others have been honorary presidents. Here is a complete list of Bologna presidents from 1909 until the present day.^[5]

Managerial history

Bologna have had many managers and trainers, some seasons they have had co-managers running the team, here is a chronological list of them from 1920 onwards.^[6]

Name Nationality Years Hermann Felsner 1920–1931 Gyula Lelovich 1931–1932 József Nagy 1932 Achille Gama 1932–1933 Technical Commission 1933–1934 Lajos Kovács 1934 Árpád Weisz 1934–1938 Hermann Felsner 1938–1942 Mario Montesanto 1942–1943 Alexander Popovic 1945–1946 Technical Commission 1946 József Viola 1946–1947 Gyula Lelovich 1947–1948 Tony Cargnelli 1948–1949 Edmund Crawford 1950–1951 Raffaele Sansone 1951 Giuseppe Galluzzi 1951–1952 Gyula Lelovich 1952 Giuseppe Viani 1952–1956 Aldo Campatelli 1956–1957 Ljubo Benčić 1957 György Sárosi 1957–1958 Alfredo Foni 1958–1959 Federico Allasio 1959–1961 Fulvio Bernardini 1961–1965 Manlio Scopigno 1965 Luis Carniglia 1965–1968 Giuseppe Viani 1968 Cesarino Cervellati 1968–1969 Oronzo Pugliese 1969 Edmondo Fabbri 1969–1972 Oronzo Pugliese Cesarino Cervellati 1972 Bruno Pesaola 1972–1976 Gustavo Giagnoni 1976–1977 Cesarino Cervellati 1977

Name Nationality Years Bruno Pesaola 1977–1979 Marino Perani 1979 Cesarino Cervellati 1979 Marino Perani 1979–1980 Luigi Radice 1980–1981 Tarcisio Burgnich 1981–1982 Franco Liguori 1982 Alfredo Magni 1982 Paolo Carosi 1982–1983 Cesarino Cervellati 1983 Giancarlo Cadè 1983–1984 Pietro Santin 1984 Bruno Pace 1984–1985 Carlo Mazzone 1985–1986 Vincenzo Guerini 1986–1987 Gian Battista Fabbri 1987 Luigi Maifredi 1987–1990 Francesco Scoglio 1990 Luigi Radice 1990–1991 Luigi Maifredi 1991 Nedo Sonetti 1991–1992 Eugenio Bersellini 1992–1993 Aldo Cerantola 1993 Romano Fogli 1993 Alberto Zaccheroni 1993 Edoardo Reja 1993–1994 Renzo Ulivieri 1994–1998 Carlo Mazzone 1998–1999 Sergio Buso 1999 Francesco Guidolin 1999–2003 Carlo Mazzone 2003–2005 Renzo Ulivieri 2005 Andrea Mandorlini 2005–2006 Renzo Ulivieri 2006–2007 Luca Cecconi 2007 Daniele Arrigoni 2007–2008 Siniša Mihajlović 2008-2009 Giuseppe Papadopulo 2009 Franco Colomba 2009-present

Honours

Northern League / Serie A: 7

• Champions: 1924–25; 1928–29; 1935–36; 1936–37; 1938–39; 1940–41; 1963–64
• Runners-up: 1920–21; 1923–24; 1925–26; 1926–27; 1931–32; 1939–40; 1965–66

Italian Cup 2:

• Winners: 1969–70, 1973–74

Mitropa Cup 3:

• Winners: 1932, 1934, 1961

UEFA Intertoto Cup:

• Winners: 1998

References

External links

• Official Website (Italian)