Peaches, Pink Flamingos, Pomegranate Bellinis…I just want to make a stand here, this is a clean blog, god fearing, Pope German Shepherd Ratzinger supportive, Thanksgiving is everyday type of blog so if you were drawn by the innocent headline to fill your rotten jar with perverted notions or actions there of, rather if you were drawn by the letter P and the milieu of racy scenarios it creates, or if you clicked on this blogicle, for the simple pleasure of seeing the five letter word P_____ written on a page in ARIAL type font…you will not be satisfied here so take your perversions to the Roma blog who regularly plaster Grandfather Totti’s wife at the head of postings. Hmm she must have a pink p…..PURSE! PURSE dammit, I know what you were thinking, take it with you and get out, then pray to the Catholic God of bread. This is a home for religion and football! Now go to the Vatican and pray for forgiveness in front of the gold and emerald encrusted walls!! Take a bath in jewels HEATHENS!

Bologna(Z,Z,D) – Palermo(K) 3-1. Whenever I gloat, celebrate, lactate, I mean…whenever I fall prey to the glints of hope Bologna shed every now and again, we are quickly hammered back to reality, HOWEVER suck on it DAVIDE SUCCI and 3 South Americans don’t make their equivalent in goals, Miccoli is still an APEMAN, just look at the SLOPE OF THE MAN’S FOREHEAD!

I hadn’t much hopes for Zalayeta but we see the fruits of a second striker off Di Vaio. An oxpecker successfully feeding off of Di Vaio’s mammal back. Oh and good news for us the mammal also scored in the 93rd minute. Now if only we had a classic number ten to sit behind the mammal and oxpecker rather than geriatric Adailton and the great mongoloid Mudingayi, we’d have a shot at mid-table.

Yet you must enjoy this victory! For next week is Inter and over Bologna will be bent. Did you catch that? That’s Yoda speak. Well my right hand is broken and I’m high on percocet so that will be all. Until next time… and remember there is nothing quite like a tight p….. PENNY LOAFER! Sick, you people are SICK!

Another week, a few more opportunities to grab some much-needed points from two struggling teams. Siena, sitting at the very bottom of the table, eventually coughed theirs up while playing clean football and making things somewhat interesting. Roma, sitting just a few points above the drop, refused to give anything in a must-win comebacker at the Stadio Olimpico. Where do we stand now?

Well, as Ben wrote last week, this team is in trouble. Bringing new coach Colomba in to replace Papadopulo had little to no effect on the club, and after a transfer season full of talk that amounted to little action (the “rejuvenation” of the club basically started and ended with Viviano, who has been a great acquisition, and Zalayeta, who has been less helpful), I’m wondering what the ownership is going to do. There’s talk of a new stadium in advance of a possible Italy-hosted World Cup, and they’ve done a little shuffling, but… What’s going to give this team the kick in the pants that they need? I can’t imagine the entire season continuing like this.

Watching the Roma game on ESPN360 this morning, I can’t say that I was displeased with how the team looked in the first half. The offense tried to stay organized (and is at least holding onto the ball) and the defense didn’t exactly look porous. The problem, I think, is with their rhythm… Di Vaio can’t be the same player that he was last year, and there are very few drives upfield to get him the ball. They’ll hang back and wait to get people in position, but they lack the talent to execute their plans and get the ball in the right place. Many through balls were intercepted by Roma – and Bologna’s incompetence in attack shows in the match stats. Even against Siena, they only managed 43% possession, and today they had one (!) corner kick to Roma’s 17. I’m glad that Roma didn’t complete more of those, but come on. Roma is a team that’s struggling to stay above the drop; you should not be conceding so much to them on defense. Get the ball and run. There were seven offside calls to Roma’s three, and only four shots on goal to Roma’s 29… Maybe I should retract my statement about the defense being better than “porous”.

At least Viviano continues to impress – I’m glad that he can serve as a sort of young base moving forward. As far as the rest of the youth… Osvaldo was a hero of mine when he came to Bologna, because I thought that he could take Di Vaio’s place as the new young star at the front for a team that plays with a “get the ball to the striker and pray” mentality, but he had one strike from the right side today and was otherwise, in ESPN’s words, “invisible”.

It certainly seems to me that the biggest problem for Bologna is their lack of ball control. They’ll clear to prevent an attack and then give their opponents another chance moments later, leading to inevitable goals. Luckily, I just read (while writing this post!) that Bologna have brought in Ghana captain and midfielder Stephen Appiah… Can he help in midfield? He seems spirited from his comments to the press, and he’s only 28, but I’ll reserve judgment until I see him on the pitch. Hopefully, the rossoblu learn from their successes and failures in these two games and try to do something next week against Palermo.

The reality is; Sampdoria are currently a hot skillet, the journalists will continue to paint heavy comparisons to the scudetto winning flag pole of 1991, the current team’s habits of group dinners are reminiscent of the unity shown by the mythic Samp, and strangely enough on the 9th day of play in 1990 Sampdoria won by the scoreline of 4-1, away to Diego Maradona’s Napoli thanks to Vialli and Mancini who scored a pair each. In truth: we were defeated at the whistle.

Bologna are in dire straits; the firing of Papadopulo for Colomba is like trading in your Ford for a Chevy, what we need right now is a Ferrari or at least a reliable Nissan. Why we didn’t seek the Conte or Mazzarri before they were taken off the job market? The Menarini’s have once again proved not to be the rock of solidity needed to reel the anchor of a tormented club.

We are a rotten cabbage. Sick from the inside out. To peel away the bad leaves will only reveal more and the center of it you will find has the worst rot. The Menarini’s sordid dinner date with Luciano Moggi last season; I fail to believe that this had no impact on our campaign for salvation. However I am never one to judge because I am a realist.

It’s quick to throw stones but nobody’s bed is clean. Where there exists the practice of politics, from the Vatican to your office: there lies corruption. The loudest voices come from those who do not benefit from it, yet we did this past season and I have a feeling that as long as the Menarini’s are in charge we will benefit yet again despite the stronger levels of the clubs in the relegation zone. This realist says complaint and cast stones don’t make change so if you’re on the triumphant end, continue to triumph.

That being said, salvation or truth if you have ambition for this sort of thing lies in the blucerchiati. The eyes of the great Vialli are upon us.

After last week’s disappointing loss to Napoli, struggling Bologna take on in-form Sampdoria this Saturday at noon EST, hoping to somehow nab some much-needed points and move up from the bottom of the table. With a new coach and a new formation, can they take something away from this match?

Last week was disappointing, to put it lightly. I filled my first post with optimism and energy, hopeful that Napoli would be an opponent we could handle. Coach Papadopulo was fighting for his job, but when gametime came, the team looked weak and slow on the pitch – never a good sign. I watched them allow chance after chance after chance to Napoli, and though they took an early lead on a penalty kick by Adailton, it was not a match that they could have possibly won, and they ended up losing 2-1. Napoli came out of the gate firing, and Bologna’s defense couldn’t hold up… What they needed to do, I thought, was keep Di Vaio up front by himself with Zalayeta supporting from behind and bolster their defense by the net. You aren’t going to create scoring opportunities by overwhelming the other side’s defense if you don’t have a few talented guys up front, so revert to the old ways and just get the ball to Marco Di Vaio. If you can’t control the ball in mid-field, increase your numbers by the net or keep your defense spread out and available at every inch of your side. Besides that, it’s always important to be spirited, something this team has lacked this season… Coraggio, ragazzi!

The management must have heard my pleas, as they sacked Papadopulo (who I liked, but who wasn’t really capable of getting this team out of the basement) and brought in new coach Franco Colomba to inspire the tired and outmatched Rossoblu. He’s using a formation that I think will play to the team’s strengths… the only problem is that his first match is against a far superior side. Can Di Vaio and the rest prove that they can play better defense and hold on to the ball at mid-field? Can they create opportunities up front, even while outclassed talent-wise? Can they play an entertaining 90 minutes? I hope to see some serious improvements in this team’s form tomorrow – I’d love to see some spirit and determination, because Bologna need to get some momentum going forward against some easier teams (Siena’s next, struggling Palermo and Atalanta coming up). I’ll check in after the game, and I’ll throw the starting lineups down below, courtesy of La Gazzetta dello Sport, as always.

Last season, I watched Bologna overcome all odds and dismantle Sampdoria through some excellent play by Di Vaio. Let’s see if they can at least compete again this time around – I’m optimistic, but then, I always am. Forza Bologna!

It’s been a relatively uneventful two weeks away from Serie A. Luckily, we’re gearing up for this weekend’s return to action after a tough loss to Genoa during the celebration of Bologna FC’s 100th anniversary. It was a match that Bologna fans desperately wanted to win, considering the hype and excitement surrounding the game, but the 3-1 loss may provide a bit of perspective. We might already be getting to that point in the season where fans have to take a step back and think realistically about their goals for the year. Can this team climb up the Serie A ranks and contend? As a fan who witnessed the unlikely salvezza of last season firsthand, I’m ever-optimistic. Already this season I’ve seen these guys pull out miracles against Juve and almost against Fiorentina early on; this is a team with fight, and after acquiring some new talent and setting some new goals for itself, this team can do something more than fight against relegation. They can compete.

Before I go any further, I should probably introduce myself: my name is Giovanni, and I’ve signed on with the Bologna FC blog here at TheOffside in order to help co-blogger Ben and make regular contributions to keep the blog running. I’m an American college student living on the East Coast, graduating in the spring, but I spent the last year studying in Italy at the University of Bologna (and before that in Florence during the hot Italian summer). I had the privilege of attending many soccer games during my stay – the team won every one of the games I saw except for the one against Inter, which was still a blast – and I miss the sport terribly. I’m up every Sunday to catch Internet feeds of the team’s games, and I’m a frequent reader of TheOffside, the official Bologna site, and some Italian fansites. I can speak Italian, so I hope to pass along what I hear and read about the team from Italian sources, and I hope that you Offside readers enjoy my enthusiasm. And if I sound a little biased or I display a sort of “ra-ra” fan attitude in my writing, it’s just because I’m a hopeful fan who misses the team and its city.

With that out of the way, I can handle the match preview and do a little team recap. Ben’s been busy in his life away from the blog, so we haven’t had much in the way of previews or recaps, but I’ll probably be stealing Ben’s traditional copy/pasting of roster previews that you can find every week over at the Italian site of La Gazzetta dello Sport. For this week’s match, Papadopulo is sticking with the 4-4-2 formation and Di Vaio-Zalateya up front; my boy Osvaldo is available, but defender Raggi is out… Still, I hope that the defense is more solid than it looked against Genoa. You Napoli fans have any thoughts about the match-up? Please, post below in the comments!

So there you have it. After a bit of a stumbling start without captain Marco Di Vaio and some missteps here and there, Bologna finds itself near the bottom of the table, but not so far that they can’t propel themselves upward with a win this Sunday. Napoli sit one place ahead with 7 points to Bologna’s 6 – this would be a big confidence-booster, something that we really need. I’ll be watching closely, and I’ll report back after the match, before next weekend’s Saturday game against Sampdoria. Please bear with me as I get the blog running smoothly again, and thanks for reading! Forza Bologna, ragazzi!

I apologize for the lack of posts as of recent, but as always at moments my job can take me away for extended periods of time.

Tomorrow starts the campionato and tomorrow Bologna face a fierce Fiorentina in a derby that has poisoned the blood of its fans for decades.

Since last I posted, the gas-man Taci pulled out of negotiations to gain 80 percent ownership of Bologna and Zalayeta has arrived as reinforcement ahead of the season. All will be told in 90 minutes tomorrow afternoon.

This post is brief but I will return tomorrow evening with a full game re-cap. Thank you for your patience.

Today Bologna FC announced that the takeover of 80 percent shares by Albanian petrol mogul Rezart Taci has stalled. Two versions of the reason for the halt are circulating.

1: Taci believes that the valuation 22 million for 80 percent share of the team is over priced; his valuation being 15 million.

2: There are technical details between the banks; creating difficulties in the transferring of funds.

They state that all will be worked out by week’s end. We shall see…

I may have been a bit hasty in calling for Rezart Taci to be banished from Bologna: uh huh huh uh (nervous laugh). Well let’s just say there are those changing opinions of the man, those calling him Il RE(zart), and those of us rescinding our initial storms and crawling back into our holes of skepticism: awaiting the true verdict on the man.

Rezart claimed that the budget for this years Bologna FC will be 60 million euro. Yes the man stamped the number to firmly stake claim to his new Bologna and gain faith in the fans and the city. However it must be understood that 24 million of this 60 million is in fact the same money being used to acquire 80 percent ownership of the club. Another 7 million is being paid to Fiorentina for the services of Pablo Daniel Osvaldo. Remaining is 29 million euro to spend in the transfer market; a great sum of money indeed, yet not a resounding 60 million euro as it was made to seem.

There has been news that Bologna have been inquiring with Napoli concerning the sale of their Argentinian outcast, Ezequil Lavezzi for the sum of 18 million euro and even the name of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar has been thrown into the mix. However it is more likely players of a discount talent will be arriving in the form of Rolando Bianchi or Davide Succi.

In a more positive light 29 million euro is 29 million more than Roma have to spend, so let’s be thankful and pray for a Lavezzi rather than a Succi. Huntelaar rather than Bianchi. Seventh place finish rather than seventeenth. Forza Bologna.

MAKE GOOD YOUR WORD!!! SPEND SPEND SPEND!!! BUY BUY BUY!!! OR OUT YOU GO!!!