The night of miracles

The number is precise: 60.
Sixty years have passed since the city of Bologna, long accustomed to basketball success, last saw its football team participate in Europe’s top club competition. The previous occasion was in 1964 when the tournament was known as the European Champion Clubs’ Cup. Bologna had just secured its seventh and last Scudetto (national championship title) in the only play-off ever held in Serie A history, triumphing over Helenio Herrera and Giacinto Facchetti’s legendary Inter.

However, their dreams of glory were shattered in the first round against Belgium’s Anderlecht, who advanced by the cruelest of methods—a coin toss at the end of the play-off held at Barcelona’s Camp Nou. In a twist of fate, the 25 pesetas coin, tossed by the referee, displayed the face of Francisco Franco, the side chosen by the Belgians.

The next 60 years were marked by struggles and dormancy: a Coppa Italia win in 1974 and an Intertoto Cup victory in 1998, punctuated by numerous relegations in the 1980s and 2000s, even dropping to Serie C1 and suffering a corporate bankruptcy. Dark times indeed, compared to the club’s early glory days. Founded in 1909, by 1941 Bologna had already claimed six league titles. In 1937, it defeated England’s Chelsea in the final of the International Tournament at the Universal Expo in Paris, becoming the first club to triumph over the so-called “masters” of English football. The victory earned them the nickname “the team that makes the world tremble,” under the guidance of Hungarian coach Árpád Weisz, who tragically perished in Auschwitz in January 1944.

Today, the city is in ecstasy. The team is cohesive, playing with joy and confidence. Coach Thiago Motta and president Joey Saputo—an Italian-Canadian entrepreneur and owner of one of North America’s largest dairy companies—have built a squad that, thanks to consistent positive results, has surpassed all expectations set at the beginning of the year. The fans, who have never abandoned the team, have shown their unwavering support, even on cold, rainy winter nights, greeting the players with immense enthusiasm upon their return from victorious away matches.

Bologna is experiencing a sudden and unexpected sporting renaissance that has touched everyone’s lives. The city, well-suited to long, festive nights, now dares to believe that this might truly be the year Lucio Dalla—Bologna’s beloved singer-songwriter, who passed away in 2012—once sang about: a year when “it will be three times Christmas and party all day.”