Team Focus: Donadoni Impact Sparks Drastic Change in Bologna Ambition

Roberto Donadoni was in the car when his phone began to ring. “I was on my way to Cuccaro to pick up the Nils Liedholm award.” The 52-year-old former winger was being recognised for the job he did at Parma. Unlike Francesco Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, he did not abandon ship when the club sunk into financial oblivion. Honourably he went down with it, doing so with great dignity and showing admirable solidarity.

Now out of work, Bologna had been in touch to sound Donadoni out about his interest in replacing Delio Rossi. This was in October. He was hesitant. “I thought perhaps it would be better to wait and get back into the game later,” he admitted. A better offer would come along. Bologna were in the relegation zone. They had lost eight of their 10 games since returning to the top flight via the play-offs. But Donadoni couldn’t ignore this call. It was Bologna’s owner Joey Saputo. “The signal was poor and the line kept breaking up,” Donadoni recalled. “I had to stop the car in order to finish the conversation.”

Hitherto he had been cautious about getting involved. His experience with Parma hadn’t scarred him. “I’ve got a lot of friends there, the city loved me. It gave me a daughter and made me a better person.” But he quite understandably didn’t want a repeat. “I got the impression that what [Saputo] said was genuine.” He is a billionaire after all. “He spoke to me with honesty and [unlike Tommaso Ghirardi] gave me a realistic picture of how things were at Bologna. That was enough to persuade me.”

And Donadoni deserved to land on his feet. He’s humble. A hard worker. Despite an illustrious career as a player, he didn’t feel entitled to a top coaching job early. He started out at the bottom with third division Lecco. The club had no money. Donadoni even had to put his hand in his pocket to pay for a training pitch and when the players wages went unpaid he took legal action in their defence. Lecco sacked him, realised the error of their ways and brought him back. They finished 10th.

Clubs not knowing a good thing until it’s gone is a theme with Donadoni. He resigned at Livorno after owner Aldo Spinelli went on TV and criticised his tactics and handling of the dressing room. Livorno were 7th at the time. Seventh! One of the reasons he got the Italy job was down to his work there. The other was because at a time when Calciopoli engulfed the game in Italy, he was clean. Untainted by it.

Replacing Marcello Lippi after he won the World Cup was in many respects the impossible job, particularly with the cigar-smoking former Juventus coach on sabbatical and available to comment and undermine him at every faux pas. In hindsight, going out on penalties in the quarter-finals of Euro 2008 to a Spain side that was at the beginning of a cycle is no disgrace and Donadoni again left with his dignity intact.

The FIGC had put a new contract in front of him ready to sign before the tournament. Rather than sign it he amended his existing one to include an automatic extension if Italy reached the semi-finals. That way if the Azzurri disappointed, the FIGC wouldn’t have to pay compensation. When Antonio Conte leaves in the summer, Italy could do worse than re-appoint him. At Napoli, Donadoni was the victim of a cold war between the owner Aurelio de Laurentiis and then director of sport Pier Paolo Marino. Now de Laurentiis can’t stop praising him.

Losing your job at Cagliari was hardly a failure when Massimo Cellino owned the club. Recently he tried to lure Donadoni to Leeds. It was an offer he could never accept. Ignominiously Cellino infamously tried to get out of settling up the contract of Donadoni’s former assistant, ex Cagliari goalkeeper Sergio Buso, because, in his opinion, he never took training on the pitch. It was a heartless act. Buso was suffering from leukaemia and worked from his hospital bed.

Parma’s former owner Ghirardi must now wonder if all the financial risks he took were really necessary when he had Donadoni on the bench. It feels like a lifetime ago now but the season before last they went on a club record 18-game unbeaten run, finished sixth and would have been playing in Europe if not for the financial irregularities that brought about their bankruptcy and the need to start all over again in Italy’s fifth tier.

All of this tended to overshadow or at least contribute to any sustained appreciation of Donadoni’s coaching ability getting lost. He doesn’t court the limelight. When he rescued the family of Mario Angelo Anquiletti, a member of the great Milan team of the `60s, from financial ruin this winter, he wished to remain anonymous. That anecdote in itself is just the latest in a long list of examples that give a measure of the man. It commands respect and that’s what Donadoni immediately got from the Bologna players. 

He didn’t come in thinking he knew better than his predecessor. On the contrary Donadoni insisted on meeting Rossi prior to his first training session. He valued his insight into the squad. What was right. What had been going wrong. Bologna are a young team. Only Empoli’s has a lower average age. It was put together in a hurry. Promotion wasn’t sealed until June and some of the business they did was last minute. Players needed to settle and adapt to a higher level.

The first thing Donadoni did was to tell them not to panic. He composed the team. Then he made a few tweaks. The formation changed to a 4-3-3. Donadoni went with greater experience in defence. Players in their 30s, Luca Rossettini and Domenico Maietta, replaced those in their early 20s, Alex Ferrari and Marios Oikonomou. The most promising of Bologna kids kept their places: Adam Masina at left-back - Bolgona's highest rated player (7.31) according to WhoScored.com - and Godfred Donsah and Amadou Diawara in midfield.

Donadoni’s next challenge was to get Mattia Destro scoring to his potential again. He hadn’t found the net once under Rossi and by now we were into October. The team needed to improve its organisation. At one stage against Udinese the defence and attack were 64m apart. The mentality had to change as well. Al Pacino’s speech in Any Given Sunday was once again used as motivation. Donadoni wanted the team to be more aggressive. His impact was instant. Bologna beat Atalanta 3-0. Destro scored his first goal for the club after 13 hours and 54 minutes. Emanuele Giaccherini did as well. Both haven’t looked back, moving onto league tallies of 8 and 6 respectively. Nor have Bologna.

They have taken 28 points in 16 games and if the season began when Donadoni was named manager of the Felsinei, they would be in the top 5. When Napoli went top in December, Bologna beat them. When Juventus took pole last week, they held them to a 0-0 draw, ending a club record 15-game winning streak in Serie A. Roma, Fiorentina and Lazio couldn’t get the better of them. The New Year started with a win against Milan at San Siro. Donadoni was applauded by his old fans, many of whom were left wondering, and not for the first time, why he has never been been given the chance to coach the Rossoneri.

What impresses about Bologna isn’t so much Destro and Giaccherini making a case for a call up to Euro 2016. Nor the talent of Diawara and Donsah, who has been involved in three of their last four goals. It’s how they stay in games. They keep things tight. Now the distance between defence and attack averages just 24m. Goalkeeper Antonio Mirante hasn’t conceded in the first half for 6 hours and 45 minutes. Bologna have never conceded in the first quarter of an hour. It allows this young team to grow into games. Their starting XI against Fiorentina had an average age of 24 and five months. Five of their players were born in the `90s.

Donadoni has done a remarkable job. “He will stay 101%,” Bologna director of sport Pantaleo Corvino insists amid speculation that bigger clubs are already beginning to circle. Why wouldn’t they after observing how Donadoni has taken Bologna from relegation battlers to 10th. Long term, however, Saputo’s involvement is reason enough for him to stay. The Canadian can provide the resources to challenge for the top six. The ambition is there. Now the right coach is too. Donadoni has been just what they needed. He’s like The Wolf in Reservoir Dogs. If you’ve got a problem, he’ll sort it.

Where will Bologna finish this season in Serie A and will they be able to hold onto Donadoni? Let us know in the comments below