Bologna: The place where players go to rejuvenate their careers
By: Francesco | November 25th, 2008
Roberto Baggio. Giuseppe Signori. Marco Di Vaio. What do all these players have in common? Yes they are all Italian, yes they are all strikers, but the main similarity is that when each of these players went to play for Bologna, their careers were rejuvenated.
There is something about the capital city of the Emilia-Romagna region that just rejuvenates a player’s career.
The first player to turn his career around at Bologna was the legendary Roberto Baggio in the 1997-98 season. With the 1998 World Cup in France forthcoming, Baggio couldn’t stay at Milan any longer where he wasn’t guaranteed a starting position and was on the way out. He needed a place where he could be the star and play all the time. So the best player Italy has produced in the last 25 years went to Bologna. He shaved off his famous codino and took the number 10 Rossoblu jersey, going on the having one of his best seasons as a professional, playing in 30 games and scoring 22 goals, the most he has ever scored in a single season. Baggio was called up to the national team for the World Cup and the rest is history. Here are the all the goals Baggio scored with Bologna in 97/98:
The second player to rejuvenate his career in Bologna was deadly striker Giuseppe “Beppe” Signori. The former Lazio captain looked to be on the downside of his career, after scoring 107 goals in 152 games for Lazio (an amazing record), he did not see eye to eye with Sven-Goran Eriksson and left the capital city for Sampdoria. He didn’t have a great season, only playing 17 games and scoring 3 goals. After the loss of Baggio to Inter in the summer of 1998, Bologna decided to give Rossoblu fans a new hero, and they did that by acquiring Signori. Signori became an instant idol to the fans, inheriting the number 10 left by Baggio and captaining the side to new heights. He ended up scoring 67 goals in 163 games before finishing his career in various other leagues around Europe. Here are Signori’s goals with Bologna:
And finally that leads us to the present day and to striker Marco Di Vaio. The Roman-born striker brought up in the Lazio youth system was considered one of Italy’s top strikers in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, impressing everyone at Parma and then being signed by Juventus. He even was on the final Italy roster for Euro 2004. After Euro 2004 however Di Vaio lost himself and wasn’t really the player he once was. He found moderate success abroad with Valencia and then Monaco, and then he returned to Italy and dropped down to Serie B to play with Genoa. He played with them last season but the Rossoblu’ relied heavily on Marco Borriello and therefore Di Vaio didn’t see the pitch much. This summer he was convinced to come to Bologna and it looks like he too has found rejuvenation in Bologna. He has become the main striker of Bologna’s attack and has scored 7 goals up until now, level with players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Mauro Zarate, two away from Alberto Gilardino, and 4 away from Diego Milito. It looks like Di Vaio has refound his confidence and is returning to form that made him such a deadly striker a few years ago. Maybe sometime soon he’ll have his own Bologna goal compilation youtube video, but for now we’ll just have to watch this one:
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